Indicator PI.8.c Density of fast food outlets
Data Source
This dataset was purchased from ESRI (Redlands, CA), a private vendor, in Spring 2009. It includes all businesses for San Francisco. InfoUSA collects information on approximately 12 million private and public US companies. Individual businesses are located by address geocoding—not all will have an exact location. The ESRI geocoder integrates an address-based approach with more than forty million residential and commercial U.S. address records from the Tele Atlas Address Points database.
Map prepared by City and County of San Francisco, Department of Public Health, Environmental Health Section using ArcGIS software.
Table data is presented by planning neighborhood. While planning neighborhoods are larger geographic areas than census tracts, census tracts do not always lie completely within a planning neighborhood. Detailed information regarding geographic units of analysis, their definitions, and their boundaries can be found in the HDMT at the following links:
http://www.thehdmt.org/etc/Geographic_Units_of_Analysis.September_2009.pdf
http://www.thehdmt.org/data_map_methods.php
Explanation and Limitations
Fast food outlets were indentified from businesses with a North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) code for restaurants (72211002, 72211011, 72211012, 72211013, 72221101, 72221103, 72211016,72211020,72221104,7222 1105). From these businesses, restaurants with two or more locations with the same name and that provided counter service meals in San Francisco were selected for inclusion. Major fast-food chains were included (e.g., McDonald’s, Taco Bell, Carl’s Jr.), as were smaller, regional or locally owned chains.
Why is this a Community Health Indicator?
People who live near an abundance of fast-food restaurants and convenience stores compared to grocery stores and fresh produce vendors, have a significantly higher prevalence of obesity and diabetes.a
PolicyLink, the UCLA Center for Health Policy Research, and California Center for Public Health Advocacy. Designed for Disease: The Link Between Local Food Environments and Obesity and Diabetes. April 2008.