Longitudinal associations between gentrification and food environments of original residents in the United States.

OBJECTIVE

Whether gentrification improves neighborhood food environments is unknown, especially for people who move during gentrification. We assessed associations between gentrification and changes in food environments for original residents, including those who remained in their neighborhoods (stayers) and those who left (movers) and examined differences by race/ethnicity.

METHODS

We linked gentrification and retail food measures to the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health. We limited the sample to participants with below-median household income in adolescence who lived in metropolitan, gentrifiable census tracts at baseline. Using linear regression with interaction terms for wave*gentrification, we estimated longitudinal associations between gentrification and the percentage of food retailers generally providing healthy food, in Wave 3 to 4 (mean age 22-29, N = 3132) and Wave 4 to 5 (mean age 29-38, N = 2437), stratifying by residential mobility and race/ethnicity.

RESULTS

From Wave 3 to 4, gentrification was negatively associated with percent healthy food retail for stayers overall (p < .05) and for non-Hispanic White stayers (p < .01); we found no associations for movers. From Wave 4 to 5, gentrification was positively associated with percent healthy food retail for non-Hispanic Black stayers (p < .05), but not other stayers, and negatively associated with percent healthy food retail for Hispanic/Latino movers (p < .05), but not other movers.

CONCLUSIONS

Contrary to claims that gentrification improves food access for original residents, gentrification was not consistently associated with healthfulness of food environments for original residents in a nationally representative sample. Mixed findings across periods highlight the need to explore additional factors, including age and economic context.