Social inequities in the food retail patterns around schools in Recife, Brazil

Abstract

This study aimed to describe the community food environment surrounding schools and its association with territorial socio-environmental vulnerability in the city with the highest intraurban social inequity index in Brazil. Methods: this ecological observational study includes data on the presence and type of food retail in a 400 m buffer surrounding public and private schools in Recife. We have also described the Health Vulnerability Index (HVI) of census tracts and conducted multivariate analyses. Results: through factor analysis, we observed two grouping patterns of food retail. The “diverse food outlets” pattern was positively associated with middle HVI (β 0.14, 95% confidence interval [CI] - 0.11; 0.16) and higher HVI areas (β 0.15, 95%CI - 0.11; 0.17), while “the large food retail chains” pattern was inversely associated with middle HVI (β -0.42, 95% CI - 0.53; -0.30) and high HVI areas (β -0.32, 95%CI - 0.45; -0.18) and positively associated with private schools (β 0.15, 95%CI - 0.030; 0.27). Conclusion: the greatest variety in food retail is in high HVI areas, and large food retail chains prevail around private schools, especially in low HVI areas.