Our original 2006 study, which included a statistical analysis linking the Food Desert to more diet-related death, was updated in 2008 (released in 2009), 2010, and now in 2011 (the document available below). The updates track the Food Desert boundaries and related demographic data. From 2010 to 2011, the Chicago Food Desert contracted from about 64 to 55 square miles and decreased its population 30%. Overall in the last five years, it saw a 39% reduction. But the Food Desert problem remains large. Its current population  total (383,954) is equivalent to filling U.S. Cellular Field to capacity ten times. Said another way, the next time the Sox play to a sold-out crowd, consider that ten times that number of people on the west and south sides of the city live without adequate access to healthy foods and that they are more likely to die prematurely from diabetes at statistically significant rates controlling for other factors.

Download Attachments