The Clark R. Smith Family Foundation is interested in food deserts and how they relate to the development and well-being of children and families. Toward this end, they would like to provide funds to create a new data source linking the geographic location of families in the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID) with the geographic location of supermarkets and convenience stores so that the distance families live from reliable sources of fresh and nutritious food can be calculated. One advantage of linking this new module to the PSID is that it can be linked to other PSID modules (e.g., time diaries in the Child Development Study, the recently reinstated food security questions, health outcomes (e.g., BMI), comprehensive data on families? socioeconomic background) to answer a range of questions that would be of interest to researchers from the fields of health, economics, sociology, and psychology. The initial plan is to link the most recent survey wave (2013) to the food provider database with a longer-term plan to match additional years going back a decade (survey waves 2005-2011). The overall aim of this project is to contribute to our knowledge about the relations between food accessibility and children?s and families? well-being in the U.S., and to provide a public good that can be used by researchers worldwide.
Funding:
Clark R. Smith Family Foundation
Funding Period:
01/01/2016 to 06/30/2018