This is a helpful summary of our Chicago Food Desert study prepared by our sponsor, LaSalle Bank.

Chicago has roughly 500,000 people who live in the food desert, a place with no or distant grocery stores, but nearby fast food options. Most are single women and children. Our research demonstrates that residents of the food desert are more likely to suffer and die prematurely from diet-related diseases and conditions. We have known for a long time that […]

This very short briefing begins with our foundational premise that the health and vitality of urban communities is a block-by-block phenomenon. Our first task is to measure the distance from every City of Chicago block to the nearest grocery store and fast food restaurant. Next, we develop an empirical score to quantify the balance of food choice available to residents. […]

The briefing and map shows the outline of the Chicago Food Desert and highest concentration of poverty.

The briefing and map shows the outline of the Chicago Food Desert and lowest concentration of household that own automobiles.

More and more children are getting adult-level diseases such as diabetes. Does place matter?

Majority African American and majority White communities that have out-of-balance food environments will have higher rates of residents dying prematurely from diabetes that are statistically significant, controlling for income, education, and race. African American communities will be the most likely to experience the greatest total years of life lost from diabetes as a result.

We analyzed 226 tracts with at least 20 deaths each from diet-related causes per tract for year 2003. Of those 226 tracts, 100 are majority White and 97 and majority African American. Those aggregate numbers were large enough to analyze White and African American tracts further, controlling for race and other influencers, by sorting them by first by race and […]

Our Study, Examining the Impact of Food Deserts on Public Health in Chicago, included a robust, albeit self-reported, sample of height and weight from driver’s license records by Zip Code. Height and weight, included in those records, allows the calculation of body mass index (BMI), an accepted measure for obesity. The data are grouped into tertiles (thirds). The map shows […]

Premature death due to cancer and cardiovascular disease is also greater for African American, White, and Latino communities where there is greater imbalance of food choices. While these effects are not statistically significant, the pattern repeats itself in nearly every instance of analysis: as communities become more out-of-balance in terms of food choices, diet-related deaths and premature death increase.

In 1923, long before the rise of McDonald’s golden arches, an advertisement for beef made this proclamation in the Bridgeport Telegraph: “Ninety percent of the diseases known to man are caused by cheap foodstuffs. You are what you eat.” The phrase you are what you eat actually dates back to the 17th century. Over time, science has repeatedly demonstrated that […]

This storyboard includes tables of our recoding of USDA Food Stamp retailers for Metro Chicago.

There are 3 food deserts in Chicago comprising a half million residents and 203,369 households. But not everyone who lives in the food desert is poor. For example, of these 203,369 households: 63,355 or 31% have an annual income of $50,000 or more 29,561 or 14% have an annual income of $75,000 or more 14,194 or 7% have an annual […]

This is a baseline map that grocers and other market actors have found helpful.

This document outlines recommended steps for Chicago to improve food access. The Task Force was formed in response to Mari Gallagher’s work.