Ambiente alimentar no entorno de equipamentos públicos de segurança alimentar e nutricional: disponibilidade, acessibilidade financeira e conveniência.

Abstract

Food and Nutrition Public Establishments are physical structures created to promote access to healthy food by strengthening local food production, supply, distribution and trade circuits. Acess to food is mesuared by five dimensions: availability, accessibility, affordability, acceptability, and accommodation.Food availability is associated with consumption; affordability has prominence in contexts of high social inequalities, and accommodation can show which places are accessible to individuals, and it is largely open to exploration in the current literature. OBJECTIVE: To investigate the availability and price of fruits and vegetables and the accommodation of food retailers in the surroundings of Food and Nutrition Public Establishments. METHODS: Cross-sectional study carried out in Belo Horizonte, Brazil. In-store audits were conducted in food retailers located in the surroundings of a representative sample of Food and Nutrition Public Establishments (n=10) and in corresponding census tracts, without the influence of Food and Nutrition Public Establishments (n=10). The food retailers were grouped into fresh food retailers and mixed food retailers. The availability of fruits and vegetables was compared between areas with and without Food and Nutrition Public Establishments (Chi-square or Fisher's Exact). Food prices were compared between areas using the price differential between fresh and mixed food retailers (Mann-Whitney test). Mean hours of operation were compared between fresh and mixed food retailers (Student's t-test). The operation of food retailers was divided into status, to consider the food retailers operating after the usual commercial hours. Finally, the hours of operation of the food retailers were compared according to the areas (Student's t-test). RESULTS: 148 food retailers were audited. In fresh food retailers, the availability of vegetables was higher in areas with Food and Nutrition Public Establishments (p<0.05). In mixed food retailers, there was low availability of fruit and vegetables in both areas (34.0% vs. 26.2%; p>0.05). Fresh food retailers had lower prices than mixed food retailers only in areas with Food and Nutrition Public Establishments (p<0.001). Mixed food retailers were open longer than fresh food retailers (p<0.001). The number of mixed food retailers opening after 6:00 p.m. was higher than the number of fresh food retailers (p<0.001). The hours of operation of fresh food retailers were lower in areas with Food and Nutrition Public Establishments (p<0.05). CONCLUSION: The presence of Food and Nutrition Public Establishments was associated with the availability of vegetables. Fresh food retailers had lower prices for fruits and vegetables than mixed food retailers, only in areas with Food and Nutrition Public Establishments. However, mixed food retailers had better accommodation. The inclusion of Food and Nutrition Public Establishments reduced the operating hours of fresh food retailers.