So What’s to Eat in Your Neighborhood?
By- Rhonda Sanders
March 4, 2010
Growing Health Communities
Introductions
Access to Health Foods Sub-Committee
Food Deserts Arkansas Hunger Relief Alliance USDA Community Food Security
Assessment
What’s the Point?
15.9% of the people in Arkansas suffer from food insecurity
Hungry children can’t learn and hungry workers can’t work
Hunger and Obesity are directly related
Definitions
Food Insecurity Household Food Insecurity Community Food Insecurity
What is a Community Food Security Assessment?
It is the collection of various types of data to provide answers to questions about the ability of existing community resources to provide sufficient and nutritionally sound amounts of culturally acceptable food to households in the community
Why Conduct an Assessment? To understand local food systems
To inform the setting of goals to improve these local food systems
To inform decision making about policies and actions to improve community food security
To establish a long-term monitoring system with a clear set of indicators
Purpose of the USDA Community Food Security Assessment Toolkit
To provide a standardized set of measurement tools for assessing various indicators of community food security.
Components of the Assessment Profile of community socioeconomic and
demographic characteristics Profile of community food resources Assessment of household food security Assessment of food resource accessibility Assessment of food availability and
affordability Assessment of community food production
resources
Assembling the Pieces
Things you want to know Gathering the people with the
answers Build ownership
Data and Data Collection
Quantitative Data Qualitative Data Existing Data Original Data Compiled Uncompiled
Data Collection Techniques
Surveys Observation Focus Groups
Expectations of the Communities
Complete Sections 4,5,6,7 and 8 of the assessment toolkit
Much of the data will be available on a new tool called the US Food Environment Atlas
http://maps.ers.usda.gov/FoodAtlas/ Return to the Alliance by June 1, 2010
What You Will Receive
A tailored workshop in the fall to help you develop a plan to increase access to healthy foods in your community.
Top Related