Study maps stark inequalities in access to healthy food options across Victoria
A new study has revealed middle-income suburbs and regional communities are the most underserved in terms of access to healthy food options, leading to calls for a statewide registry of food outlets.
The study analysed over 15,000 neighbourhoods across metropolitan Melbourne and regional Victoria.
Researchers used crowd-sourced data of food establishments from OpenStreetMap to classify food outlets into healthy, less healthy, and unhealthy categories, and tracked changes between 2019 and 2023.
Healthy outlets included fruit shops, butchers and supermarkets, while pubs, bars and fast-food outlets were classified as unhealthy.
The research, led by academics from the University of Melbourne and Murdoch Children's Research Institute (MCRI), and published in Health Promotion Journal of Australia, revealed some surprising results.
“What we found, which was quite unexpected, was that it’s not just low-income areas experiencing poor food access,” Dr Melvin Barrientos Marzan, Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the University of Melbourne, and MCRI, said.
“We found that mid-range socioeconomic areas particularly in outer suburbs and regional towns had the lowest availability of food outlets, including healthy ones compared to highest and lowest income areas.”
In metropolitan Melbourne, over 55% of the population in 2023 lived in neighbourhoods with no healthy food outlet, such as a green grocer or supermarket within 500 metres.
In regional Victoria, three in four neighbourhoods lacked a healthy food outlet within walking distance, and over one third lacked access within two kilometres.
Dr Marzan said it is well-established that increased availability of fast-food outlets is consistently linked with higher consumption of those types of foods, impacting a person’s overall diet.
“The study also used machine learning clustering to identify geographic and socioeconomic patterns in food environments, which confirmed that outer-suburban growth areas and rural towns face disproportionately low access to food outlets, despite population growth,” Dr Marzan said.
Senior author from MCRI, Associate Professor Suzanne Mavoa, said food access is a systems issue.
“We are calling for a centralised, statewide food outlet registry which is surprisingly absent, alongside targeted planning and policy action in underserved areas, not just for the most disadvantaged, but also middle-income and transitioning neighbourhoods,” Associate Professor Mavoa said.
“To address dietary inequality we need better data, stronger infrastructure, and urban planning that prioritises health especially in places where availability doesn’t match population needs.”
The full dataset has been made open-access to support future planning and research initiatives.