New insights into grocery store visits among east Los Angeles residents using mobility data

In this study, we employed spatially aggregated population mobility data, generated from mobile phone locations in 2021, to investigate patterns of grocery store visits among residents east and northeast of Downtown Los Angeles, in which 60% of the census tracts had previously been designated as “food deserts”. Further, we examined whether the store visits varied with neighborhood sociodemographics and grocery store accessibility. We found that residents averaged 0.4 trips to grocery stores per week, with only 13% of these visits within home census tracts, and 40% within home and neighboring census tracts. The mean distance from home to grocery stores was 2.2 miles. We found that people visited grocery stores more frequently when they lived in neighborhoods with higher percentages of Hispanics/Latinos, renters and foreign-born residents, and a greater number of grocery stores. This research highlights the utility of mobility data in elucidating grocery store use, and factors that may facilitate or be a barrier to store access. The results point to limitations of using geographically constrained metrics of food access like food deserts.