On August 19 at 1:00 p.m. ET, ERS will host a data training webinar showcasing the updated Food Environment Atlas. Register here to learn more about the expanded data and the new mobile-friendly interface.
Food environment factors—such as store and restaurant proximity, availability of local foods, food and nutrition assistance programs, and community characteristics—interact to influence food choices and diet quality.
The objectives of the Food Environment Atlas are:
- to provide a spatial overview of a community's ability to access healthy food and its success in doing so, and
- to assemble statistics on food environment indicators to stimulate research on the determinants of food choices and diet quality.
The Atlas can be used to:
- Create maps showing the variation in a single indicator across the United States; for example, number of farmers' markets or access to grocery stores across U.S. counties and county-equivalents;
- View all of the county-level indicators for a selected county or county equivalent;
- Zoom in to specific areas and export or print maps;
- Download the full dataset or selected data in Excel and machine-readable formats.