Qualitative Study on the Perception of Community Food-accessibility Environment among Urban Older Adults

Narae Yang; Kirang Kim

doi:10.5720/kjcn.2020.25.2.137

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Qualitative Study on the Perception of Community Food-accessibility Environment among Urban Older Adults: Narae Yang, Kirang Kim; Korean Journal of Community Nutrition 2020;25(2):137-149.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.5720/kjcn.2020.25.2.137
Published online: April 30, 2020

¹Department of Food Science and Nutrition, Dankook University, Cheonan, Korea, Graduate Student

²Department of Food Science and Nutrition, Dankook University, Cheonan, Korea, Professor

Corresponding author: Kirang Kim,
Email: kirangkim@dankook.ac.kr

Received: 1 April 2020 • Revised: 16 April 2020 • Accepted: 17 April 2020

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Abstract

Objectives
This study explored the community food environmental factors affecting food purchasing using a qualitative research methodology for the elderly as well as the various food environments under their socioeconomic diversity.
Methods
For the qualitative data collection, this study interviewed 20 elderly people aged 65 years or more, who participated in a public health program or lunch services operated by the senior welfare center in Seoul. Five dimensions, such as availability, physical accessibility, affordability, acceptability, and accommodation suggested in previous studies, were used to identify the community food environmental factors.
Results
The elderly participants showed overall similarities to the concepts derived from existing studies on the five dimensions of food accessibility environment. In addition, other important food accessibility environmental factors that were not present in previous studies, such as acceptability for a product of domestic origin, delivery service to home, and small-packaged food sales, were derived. On the other hand, the concept of some subjects differed depending on the household income and specifically for the physical accessibility concept. This showed that the close distance factor from a grocery store at home might not apply to older adults in low-income households in Korea.
Conclusions
This study found that five dimensions of the food environment suggested by previous studies could also be applied to vulnerable older adults in Korea. On the other hand, the socioeconomic characteristics of individuals and households would affect the perspectives of their local food environments differently. The findings of this study could help in the development of tools for evaluating the community food environment.

Keywords: food environment; older adults; income level; urban; qualitative study

Korean J Community Nutr. 2020 Apr;25(2):137-149. Korean.
Published online Apr 30, 2020.
https://doi.org/10.5720/kjcn.2020.25.2.137

Original Article

Qualitative Study on the Perception of Community Food-accessibility Environment among Urban Older Adults

Narae Yang

,¹ and Kirang Kim

Author information

Author notes

- ¹Department of Food Science and Nutrition, Dankook University, Cheonan, Korea, Graduate Student.
- ²Department of Food Science and Nutrition, Dankook University, Cheonan, Korea, Professor.
Corresponding author: Kirang Kim. Department of Food Science and Nutrition, Dankook University, 119, Dandae-ro, Dongnam-gu, Cheonan 31116, Korea. Tel: (041) 550-3472, Fax: (041) 559-7955, Email: kirangkim@dankook.ac.kr

Received April 01, 2020; Revised April 16, 2020; Accepted April 17, 2020.

This is an Open-Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/) which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Abstract

Objectives

This study explored the community food environmental factors affecting food purchasing using a qualitative research methodology for the elderly as well as the various food environments under their socioeconomic diversity.

Methods

For the qualitative data collection, this study interviewed 20 elderly people aged 65 years or more, who participated in a public health program or lunch services operated by the senior welfare center in Seoul. Five dimensions, such as availability, physical accessibility, affordability, acceptability, and accommodation suggested in previous studies, were used to identify the community food environmental factors.

Results

The elderly participants showed overall similarities to the concepts derived from existing studies on the five dimensions of food accessibility environment. In addition, other important food accessibility environmental factors that were not present in previous studies, such as acceptability for a product of domestic origin, delivery service to home, and small-packaged food sales, were derived. On the other hand, the concept of some subjects differed depending on the household income and specifically for the physical accessibility concept. This showed that the close distance factor from a grocery store at home might not apply to older adults in low-income households in Korea.

Conclusions

This study found that five dimensions of the food environment suggested by previous studies could also be applied to vulnerable older adults in Korea. On the other hand, the socioeconomic characteristics of individuals and households would affect the perspectives of their local food environments differently. The findings of this study could help in the development of tools for evaluating the community food environment.

Keywords

food environment; older adults; income level; urban; qualitative study

Tables

Table 1
In-depth interview questions

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Table 2
General characteristics of participants

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Table 3
Factors related to community food environment for older urban adults

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Acknowledgments

This research was supported by the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF-2019R1A2C1084372).

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