Table 2.

Food environment density measures^* over time (1990–2014) by racial composition^† in 1990 for non-water US census tracts included in sample^‡ (n 71 547)

	Predominantly non-Hispanic White		Predominantly non-Hispanic Black		Predominantly Hispanic		Predominantly Asian		Mixed racial composition
	Mean	sd	Mean	sd	Mean	sd	Mean	sd	Mean	sd
1990
All food stores	1·56	5·15	4·70	7·87	7·24	12·70	63·17	66·13	5·09	11·28
Healthy food stores	0·17	0·86	0·48	2·02	0·75	2·54	6·48	8·69	0·48	1·74
All supermarkets	0·13	0·61	0·36	1·35	0·52	1·77	3·75	5·18	0·36	1·35
Fruit and vegetable markets	0·04	0·50	0·12	1·20	0·23	1·40	2·74	6·09	0·12	0·88
All unhealthy food sources	1·33	4·52	3·42	5·66	5·41	9·50	45·12	49·88	4·23	9·70
Fast food	0·37	1·30	0·62	1·65	0·86	2·07	6·60	9·07	0·88	2·69
Convenience stores	0·19	0·57	0·48	1·01	0·53	1·23	1·95	3·64	0·49	1·38
Bakeries, candy and ice cream	0·29	1·43	0·36	1·40	0·88	2·35	12·42	14·74	0·75	2·51
2014
All food stores	2·30	7·48	6·86	14·49	13·28	25·93	92·47	97·55	8·24	18·14
Healthy food stores	0·19	0·82	0·40	1·64	0·94	2·70	5·19	6·84	0·53	1·80
All supermarkets	0·14	0·55	0·26	1·14	0·48	1·75	1·72	3·62	0·34	1·32
Fruit and vegetable markets	0·05	0·51	0·13	0·95	0·46	1·93	3·47	5·18	0·19	1·04
All unhealthy food sources	2·89	9·30	7·40	15·50	13·90	28·69	79·68	78·82	9·39	20·96
Fast food	0·89	2·72	1·85	4·68	3·14	6·79	12·72	13·99	2·36	5·56
Convenience stores	0·34	0·98	0·80	1·56	1·19	2·58	2·45	4·09	0·88	2·08
Bakeries, candy and ice cream	0·52	2·13	0·77	2·52	1·88	4·46	17·58	18·33	1·43	4·34
Change 1990–2014
All food stores	0·75	3·86	2·16	9·74	6·03	17·23	29·31	50·34	3·15	11·00
Healthy food stores	0·02	0·77	−0·08	1·65	0·18	2·42	−1·30	4·59	0·05	1·66
All supermarkets	0·00	0·55	−0·10	1·31	−0·04	1·60	−2·03	3·91	−0·02	1·31
Fruit and vegetable markets	0·01	0·52	0·01	0·99	0·23	2·14	0·73	3·86	0·06	1·09
All unhealthy food sources	1·56	5·73	3·98	12·36	8·49	22·04	34·57	49·64	5·17	14·17
Fast food	0·52	1·97	1·23	4·38	2·29	6·24	6·11	12·09	1·48	4·50
Convenience stores	0·15	0·88	0·32	1·64	0·66	2·59	0·50	5·29	0·39	2·02
Bakeries, candy and ice cream	0·23	1·60	0·40	2·33	1·00	3·84	5·16	12·16	0·68	3·55

^*Food environment metrics derived from National Establishment Time Series (NETS) data 1990–2014 annually. Categories are not mutually exclusive. All Food Stores includes the other store categories (not the retail for consumption on site). Healthy Food Stores includes all Supermarkets and Fruit and Vegetable markets. All Unhealthy Food sources includes Fast Food, Convenience Stores, and the Bakery categories.

^†Harmonised data for the 1990 census, 2000 census and the 2008–2012 American Community Survey, published in the Longitudinal Tract Database product (LTDB)⁽³²⁾, were used to estimate all percentage of each race/ethnicity within each tract. We defined a tract as predominantly one racial/ethnic group if greater than 60 % of residents were any particular racial/ethnic group. Tracts that did not fall into any of these categories were classified as racially mixed areas.

^‡Census tracts were excluded if they contained no land area (i.e. were water tracts) or had less than fifty residents.