Sunlight Labs

The rise of obesity rates worldwide mandates that population-wide lifestyle changes occur. Epidemiologic research points to food access, a spatial construct, as a major arena for change. The problem is that most policymakers are unaware of the link between food deserts and obesity. This project presents an integrated solution to displaying complex research findings in the context of current geographic data. Building on work done by other visualization-policy projects (walkscore.com), this project presents a novel take on the solution by displaying health effects of store types and locations.

In the face of the obesity epidemic, researchers have encountered a surprising fact; differences in food access between neighborhoods (the type and number of food stores available to residents) are associated with differences in health outcomes for entire neighborhoods (Morland, Diez-Roux, & Wing, 2006 and Moore, Diez-Roux, Nettleton, & Jacobs, 2008).

Despite the surprising links found, little attention has been paid to this topic up until now. First Lady Michelle Obama is currently promoting a Healthy Food Financing Initiative with the goal of promoting increased access to healthier foods across the United States (Treasury Public Affairs, 2010).

However, the scope of this problem is larger than the 400 million dollar investment the Obama Administration has pledged, and requires a media campaign that involves policy makers at every level. The problem is that it is difficult to communicate complicated epidemiologic data in a way that is easily understood. A tool that can do this would be very useful to convey both the urgency of the health issue and possible neighborhood-level solutions.