Hilary
The term food desert was first 'officially' coined in the Low Income
Project Team of the Nutrition Taskforce (1996) Low Income, Food &
Health: Strategies for Improvement, Department of Health, HMSO.
However has been in common usage for many years.
The recent Acheson (1998) Independent Inquiry Into Inequalities in health
mentions them as does The Cabinent Office Social Exclusion Unit's Strategies for
Neighbourhood Renewal (1998)
There are few UK studies which specifically document food deserts and
some of those are 'grey' literature. There is much more work on food
poverty (which incorporates the spatial polarisation of shopping for
an adequate diet into it's core concerns)
Recent papers include:
Cummins S & Macintyre S (1999) The location of food stores in urban
areas: a case study in Glasgow, British Food Journal, in press
Whitehead, M (1998) Food deserts: what's in a name? Health Education
Journal 57 189-90
Lang T & Caraher M (1998) Access to healthy foods: part II. Food
poverty and shopping deserts: what are the implications for health
promotion policy & practice, Health Education Journal 57 202-211
Guy CM (1996) Corporate strategies in food retailing and their local
impacts: a case study in Cardiff Env & Plan A28 1575-1602
Piachaud & Webb (1996) The price of food: missing out on mass
consumption STICERD Occasional Ppaer, London School Of
Economics & Political Science
There is also a lot of work by Guy, Wrigley, Burt & Sparks which
details the spatial transformation of the UK food retail industry
which is invaluable in contextualising modern day food deserts
Best wishes
Steve Cummins
..................................................
Steven Cummins, MRC Research Student
MRC Social & Public Health Sciences Unit,
6 Lilybank Gardens, Glasgow, G12 8RZ
Tel: (0141) 357 3949 ext 248 Fax: (0141) 337 2389
E-mail: [log in to unmask]
Http://www.msoc-mrc.gla.ac.uk
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