Improving food access using agent based simulation

A steady increase in the number of cases for chronic diseases like type-2 diabetes, obesity, cardiovascular disease and some cancers has been one of the hottest issues in healthcare. One of the main reasons for this is not maintaining adequate consumption of healthy and high quality food. Access to healthy food is a critical public-health concern and consequently there is an increasing interest in mapping the food environment and identifying food deserts (areas where people have significantly limited access to retail sources of healthy, nutritious and affordable food). This study is a step towards that goal. We use Agent Based Simulation (ABS) to simulate the impact of various policy interventions on household's consumption of fresh fruits and vegetables. We choose State College, Pennsylvania as the case study to simulate the eating and purchasing behavior of low income households and redefine food desert based on more accurate data. We use the household and geographic data from the U.S. Census and results of public surveys conducted by USDA. We conclude by presenting some methods for verifications of the model.