Examining the role of residential segregation in explaining racial/ethnic gaps in spending on fruit and vegetables

The present study used nationally-representative data from the U.S. Consumer Expenditure Survey (CE) merged with census-track data from the 2010 United States Census to model racial/ethnic disparities in spending on fresh and processed fruit and vegetables as a function of residential racial/ethnic segregation, income, household size and structure, educational attainment, marital status, age and sex. Results indicate that, in the absence of any controls, African-Americans and Hispanics tend to spend less on vegetables than non-Hispanic whites. Compared to non-Hispanic whites, African-Americans are also found to spend less on fruit. The initial analysis also shows that Hispanics spend more on fresh fruit compared to whites and blacks. However, after controlling for socio-economic status, marital status, age, sex (individual-level predictors) and residential racial/ethnic segregation (neighborhood-level predictor), racial/ethnic disparities in the spending on fruit and vegetable become insignificant. We also found that racial/ethnic segregation has a strong and negative effect on the expenditure on fruit and vegetables.