What does this measure?
The share of low-income census tracts in an area that are food deserts.
Why is this important?
Food access is critical to health and well-being. Living in a food desert means getting food may require a personal vehicle or potentially lengthy and time-consuming travel on transit. In lower-income areas, this can be even more challenging due to the added costs of travel.
How is our region performing?
In 2019, the region had 26 low-income tracts that were food deserts, or 20% of the total low-income tracts in the region. This was above the proportion for the state of 10%. Among counties, Livingston had the highest share of low-income food deserts at 50% of census tracts, though that was only 2 tracts. Monroe County had the most low-income food deserts at 17 tracts, or 20% of the total. Several counties in the region had no low-income food deserts: Genesee, Seneca, Wyoming and Yates.
Notes about the data
In this dataset, a food desert is defined as a census tract where at least 500 people or 33 percent of the population live more than 1 mile from the nearest food store (supermarket, supercenter, or large grocery store) in an urban area or more than 10 miles from such a store in a rural area. Tracts are considered low-income if they have a poverty rate of 20% or more or if median family income is below or equal to 80% of the state or metro area median.
2019 | |
---|---|
NYS | 10% |
NYS (excluding NYC) | 22% |
Region | 20% |
Monroe | 20% |
Surrounding Counties | 22% |
Genesee | 0% |
Livingston | 50% |
Ontario | 40% |
Orleans | 25% |
Seneca | 0% |
Wayne | 23% |
Wyoming | 0% |
Yates | 0% |
Notes: 1 mile for urban areas and 10 miles for rural areas
2019 | |
---|---|
NYS | 194 |
NYS (excluding NYC) | 194 |
Region | 26 |
Monroe | 17 |
Surrounding Counties | 9 |
Genesee | 0 |
Livingston | 2 |
Ontario | 2 |
Orleans | 2 |
Seneca | 0 |
Wayne | 3 |
Wyoming | 0 |
Yates | 0 |
Notes: 1 mile for urban areas and 10 miles for rural areas
INDICATORS - Grouped by Topic | REGIONAL VALUE | YEAR | NYS COMPARISON | TREND | REGION |
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