Exploring healthy food accessibility in Australian online delivery platforms, based on socioeconomic and remoteness

Dr. Cindy Needham1, Rebecca Bennett1, Laura Alston2,3, Dr. Christina Zorbas1, Dr. Sachin Wasnik4,5

1Global Centre for Preventive Health and Nutrition, Institute for Health Transformation, Deakin University, Geelong, Australia, 2Deakin Rural Health, School of Medicine, Deakin University, Warrnambool, Australia, 3Research Unit, Colac Area Health, Colac, Australia, 4Digital Solutions, Deakin University, Geelong, Australia, 5Intersect, Sydney, Australia

Abstract:

Background:

The food retail environment, a critical part of the overall food environment, refers to the physical access and availability of food retail outlets. It has a significant impact on dietary intake at a population level and is believed to contribute to the increasing prevalence of obesity and communicable diseases. For example, easy access to fast-food outlets in neighborhoods has been associated with higher consumption and purchasing of fast food. Further research and policy interventions are crucial to address these pressing issues.

Method:

An automated web scraping script was run daily over a period of three months to collect data from the top two online food delivery platforms in Victoria, Australia at the suburb level. We identified 11,154 unique food outlets from Menulog and 12,939 from Uber Eats. This study aimed to analyze the percentage of healthy, less healthy, and unhealthy food delivery outlets available and determine if there are differences based on suburb by measures of socioeconomic status and remoteness.

Result:

Descriptive statistics indicated that the healthiness of online food delivery outlets in suburbs with higher socioeconomic disadvantage and greater relative remoteness were more unhealthy outlets when compared to their urban and higher socioeconomic advantage counterparts.

Conclusion:

Disparities in the healthfulness of food outlets offered by online food delivery platforms (OFDPs) may adversely affect residents’ purchasing and dietary habits and their health. Ongoing monitoring and additional research is necessary to investigate the influence of OFDPs on public health and to inform nutritional policies that promote healthy communities.

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