Imagine living in a community where your closest option for food is a gas station, corner store, or fast-food restaurant. The nearest full-service grocery store is an hour or more away, and you have to take two unreliable buses or an expensive car ride to get there. For many rural and urban families, these are daily realities. Easy access to a variety of quality food options is a basic building block for dignity, health, economic opportunity, and cultural connection. This is why local leaders across the country are working with community members toward systemic changes that will create healthier environments.

In this first blog post in our “Equity in Action” series, we explore how three grantees of the Local Data for Equitable Communities grant program are combining local data with lived experience to address the structural barriers to quality food access. Each project focuses on different aspects of this challenge, including transportation and the built environment, economic opportunity, and local entrepreneurship.

Get Healthy Utah (Price, Utah)

In Carbon County, Utah, some residents must travel long distances to reach a full-service grocery store. The journey often involves navigating areas without sidewalks and limited transportation options, as no public transit service is available. The region also lacks culturally relevant food markets that reflect the preferences of the growing Latino and Hispanic population. Get Healthy Utah is partnering with the Southeast Utah Health Department and city leaders in Price, Utah, to better understand these dynamics in this rural community. Through community food audits and mapping tools, project leaders are assessing walkability, transportation barriers, and proximity to quality and culturally relevant food stores. The goal is to provide decisionmakers with a final report that highlights local data and community experiences to inform planning and policy decisions that will improve healthy food access across the region.

The Nashville Food Project (North Nashville, Tennessee)

In North Nashville, a historically Black community with deep cultural roots, residents face growing barriers to healthy food as new development changes the neighborhood. Grocery stores and markets are unevenly distributed, and limited public transportation options make it difficult to reach affordable, nutritious food.

The Nashville Food Project is working with community members to map food availability alongside indicators of transit access and the condition of transit stops. They are engaging residents in data collection and storytelling as they aim to identify where gaps exist and how local government and organizations can better respond. The resulting dashboard will support decisionmakers and advocates to address systemic challenges and improve transit options, bus stop infrastructure, and grocery store access to build healthier food systems.

United Way of Greater Knoxville (Knox County, Tennessee)

A little under 200 miles east of Nashville, in Knoxville, Tennessee, some families are experiencing food insecurity that is tied to high costs, transportation barriers, and a lack of culturally relevant food. For some neighborhoods, corner stores and fast-food restaurants are much more accessible and affordable than grocery stores that offer a variety of fresh, whole foods.

United Way of Greater Knoxville is elevating community voices to shape new solutions to these challenges. Buildings on its People’s Food Plan through surveys and neighborhood conversations, they are gathering data on lived experience and hoping to strengthen the food ecosystem by uplifting small businesses and entrepreneurs rooted in the community.

What These Communities Can Teach Us

These projects remind us that food access is deeply connected to local infrastructure, local economies, and community voice. By centering lived experience and pairing it with actionable information, these communities can improve present conditions while shaping the systems that will support healthier outcomes far into the future. We hope these examples can inspire other communities to try similar projects tailored to their needs.

About the Initiative

The Local Data for Equitable Communities grant program, funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, is supporting 30 grantee organizations across the country to use local data and community experience to improve the physical, social, or economic conditions specific to those places. These projects span rural and urban areas, engage a broad range of community members, and address issues including food access, housing and land use, climate, sustainability, and justice.

Learn more about all the Local Data for Equitable Communities grantees.

Stay Connected

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Our next blog is this series will share grantee projects focused on land use, transportation, and neighborhood design. Stay tuned.