Null Hypothesis For Healthy Food

Getting access to healthy food is varies between a wealthy community and low-income community. Not only the distance is an issue for these communities but also lack of public transportation. Our group have created a null-hypothesis to test this theory and we have used survey questions, ask people in person and share the link in reddit. We got results from 62 people then we run the final result in Chi-square test to test our null-hypothesis. The P-value came out as 0.829 that greater than 0.05 which means that we are going to accept our null hypothesis, which indicated that low income neighborhood are at a dis-advantage for accessing healthy food.

You usually get into your car drive for less than 2 miles and you are at your neighborhood grocery store where you have a verity options of fresh vegetable and healthy food. Where is the farthest grocery store in your area about 4-6 miles? imagine have to either walk to that location or take several public transportations on the other hand you have the option of just getting food at a fast food place right next to your house, which one would you choose? Residence in low income communities are suffering from the lack of accessing to healthy food and they are dependent on small stores with limited selections of foods at substantially higher price. “Even though the cost of food is an important behavior fewer studies have attempted to address locality as a factor that may hinder people’s ability to achieve a healthy diet.”

The cause of malnutrition in low income communities are happening because the migration of supermarkets and lack of transportation available to these areas. The relation between the distance to the close’s grocery store food in low income community indicates the lack of accessibility to healthy food in those areas. Accessing fresh produce and healthy food is different between low income and wealthier neighborhood. Emergency food organizations such as food pantries can improve the access. Many livings in low income communities are the main food pantries clients. These clients are at high risk incomplete intake of fruits and vegetables as emergency food assistance often does not include a supply of fresh produce. this study examines the extent to which food pantry clients live within reasonable walking distance of stores carrying fresh produce, and it proposes a strategy to increase accessibility of produce to those clients.

“Addresses for 3,985 food pantry clients residing in Pomona, California, in 2003 and 84 food stores categorized as selling a ‘variety of produce’ or ‘limited produce’ were geocoded using geographic information systems technology in 2004. A 0.8-km network buffer was used to measure access to stores. Cluster areas with high densities of food pantry clients, or hot spots, were determined.” By using individual level data, it allowed to identify the significant numbers of food pantry clients with limited access to stores. This identification will provide potential solution ton increase fresh fruit and vegetable access.

In our group we have created a research question, hypothesis and a null-hypothesis to test it out ourselves. We asked ourselves are low income neighborhood at a disadvantage for accessing healthy food? Our hypothesis is Low income neighborhoods are indeed at a disadvantage for accessing healthy food. Null-hypothesis: Low income neighborhoods are not at a disadvantage for accessing healthy foods. To test out our theory our group created a questionnaire and we asked people to fill them out via: in-person (iPad) and link sharing (reddit) and we have collected around 62 responses. The following charts will show the answers we have collected. Chi-square test performed using SPSS to see if there is an association between the category of income and the category of length of time it takes to get to the grocery store.

We performed a sampling survey to determine if we should accept the Null or Alternative Hypothesis. We used the Chi-square test to interpret data taken from the surveys. We first tested the category of income with the category of length of travel time to the grocery store. We found that the p-value was .829, well above .05 which determined that we accepted the Null Hypothesis. Secondly, we used Chi-square test to test the category of income with the category of distance to the grocery store. The p-value for the second test was .199 which is greater than .05. Again, we accepted the null hypothesis with the second test. Our final analysis is that from our sampling data low income neighborhoods are not at a disadvantage for accessing healthy food.

In conclusion we created a theory which was are low income neighborhood at a disadvantage for accessing healthy food? We located a literature review based on our theory that had been done in the past and located what method did they used to develop their theory which in this case was using the census data. In our group we created a different method to see by using different method is the answer still will be the same. We created some survey question and we and ask people from different cities to answer them. Then we run the result in Chi-square test, the result from the test give us the same result as the previous research that has been done. We found out that low income neighborhoods are not at a disadvantage for accessing healthy food. Founding this means we should do something as a part of community to help out others in need.