A food swamp is a food environment where access to food of low nutritional value is prevalent enough to “drown” access to healthy food. Norfolk's food swamp ratio is 8.9, there are 8.9 times more unhealthy food sources than healthy ones, and 55% of the city's neighborhoods have only unhealthy food options.
For the Norfolk Department of Public Health, CityWork mapped the city's food sources and analyzed how food access intersects with race, income, obesity and other health measures, public housing, and household food spending. Two findings stand out: Black and White neighborhoods can have similar food-access challenges but vastly different financial resources to overcome them, and poverty, not fast-food spending alone, is a key driver of obesity.
The work also measured food access from every Norfolk Redevelopment and Housing Authority property. About 41% of the city's grocery stores sit within a mile of a public-housing community, but they are not evenly distributed: communities like Grandy Village and Franklin Arms have no grocery store nearby.
The dashboard supports food banks and food-access organizations. It is currently transitioning to a new hosting service; the public map will return when that move is complete.