The purposes of this project are to: 1) collect demographic and grocery shopping behavior data from a survey of Chittenden County residents representing socially vulnerable populations in rural communities, including the use of transit; 2) evaluate the relationship between grocery shopping behaviors and awareness of high-quality retail grocery locations not visited; 3) develop a conceptual model of access to healthy (high-quality) food by socially vulnerable households to a) evaluate the relationship between access to healthy food, demographic attributes, and use of public transit and b) determine the feasibility of bus electrification strategies for facilitating access to healthy food by socially-vulnerable populations; and 4) derive additional spatial metrics relating access to food quality for use in later research. The survey will be used to determine the frequency of grocery shopping trips, the mode of transportation most used, and the specific origin/destination of trips. The researchers will also evaluate respondent knowledge of other retail grocery locations and code specific retail grocery locations according to the quality of food available. Using geocoded household and retail grocery locations, the researchers can calculate network distances and determine the role that distance plays in moderating the trade-off between distance and quality in measuring accessibility to food by socially-vulnerable populations. The conceptual model will help policymakers understand the obstacles faced by socially vulnerable populations in accessing healthy food, whether those obstacles involve transportation access or awareness. It can also help rural transit providers design or modify existing route systems that facilitate the adoption of electrified transit buses.
