Josh S
Jake Aftergood
UP 504 – Research Project Proposal – March 19, 2008                                                                             

Title                 Fast Food and Toledo Schools

 

Context

  1. Researchers have observed spatial relationships between fast-food restaurant locations and school locations (Austin et al. 2005)
  2. The largest fast-food chains in the U.S. are worth studying because they are so ubiquitous in cities around the US(see Assumptions section below for the list of fast-food chains)
  3. Childhood obesity rates have been increasing in recent decades, and health consequences such as juvenile diabetes, hypertension, and cardiovascular susceptibility tend to carry into adulthood.
  4. Fast Food has become a staple in the average Americans’ diet
  5. Children have responded to the marketing of the products by Fast Food companies
  6. Our lives are fast-paced, often both parents in a family work, or single parents have less time to seek out nutritious food

 

Research
Questions

  1. Are McDonald's, Burger King, and Wendy’s, and other fast-food restaurants significantly or disproportionately clustered around public K-12 institutions in the auto dependent city of Toledo, Ohio?
      1. We will compare the fast food locations in comparison to the location grocery stores because the grocery stores have the ability to represent the opposite of fast greasy food
      2. We will look at restaurant locations, to see how many lie within 0.5 and 0.25 mile radii of public schools
  2. Are these restaurants clustered significantly more around high schools or around K-8 schools?  Or is there no significant difference?
    1. High Schools =10 total
    2. Elementary (47) +Middle Schools (9) =  56 total

 

Hypothesis

  1. We hypothesize that these restaurants are predominantly clustered within the 0 – 0.5 mile radius around public schools.
  2. We hypothesize that significantly more fast food restaurants are located around high schools compared to K-8 schools.
  3. We hypothesize that a significant amount of fast food restaurants are located around public schools compared to grocery stores.

 

Unit of
Analysis          Units of Analysis: Individual Public Schools (K-12, Fast food restaurants and Grocery Stores
Data required
 and sources

    1. Fast Food and grocery store locations achieved by using the corporate website “store locator” function
    2. (we may identify other specific attributes about each store location for deeper analysis, but we will not commit to doing so for this proposal)
    3. Public School locations (TPS and Washington Local website)
    4. Geographic boundaries of Toledo, Ohio city limits (ESRI)
    5. Roads/Highways (ESRI) à So we can distinguish between roads crossable by foot and highways/freeways (uncrossable by foot)

Methodology 1

  1. Geocode restaurants
  2. Geocode schools
  3. Geocode grocery stores
  4. “Select by attributes” for schools within 0.5 mile radius of fast food restaurants
  5. “Select by attributes” for schools within 0.25 mile radius of fast food restaurants and further expand the radius again several times by 0.25 until a myriad of radii exists.
  6. Create tables indicating how many schools fall within each of the above radii
  7. Calculate descriptive statistics, significance values

 

Methodology 2

  1. Calculate difference of means test between the two school categories

 

Assumptions

  1. In 2007, Entrepreneurship Magazine identified the top ten fast food companies in terms of number of franchises in the United States as: Subway, McDonald’s, Burger King, Wendy’s, Pizza Hut, Dairy Queen, Quiznos, Dominos, Kentucky Fried Chicken, and Taco Bell.  Since there are no Dominos in the Toledo, we expanded the field to the top 11 and also include Arby’s.  We used the Progressive Grocery list of the top fifty chain grocery stores in the United States to create our sample of Toledo grocery stores.  Looking at only chain stores for each of our two study categories (fast food and grocery stores) allows for a more equal comparison.

 

Anticipated
    Results
Expect to find that fast food restaurants are more significantly located within 0.5 miles of public schools than outside the multiple 0.5 radii.  Also, a significantly greater number of fast food restaurants have a location around a high school in comparison to a K-8 school.  Finally, the fast food locations will have a significantly greater presence than the grocery stores.

We hope to create multiple maps, each addressing a different aspect of this study.  For example, we may create maps with only a single restaurant chain visible, so the reader can more easily suss out the particular chain’s development patterns, target markets, etc.

Works Cited
Austin, S. Bryn…(2005)  “Clustering of fast-food restaurants around schools: A novel
application of spatial statistics to the study of food environments.”  American Journal of Public Health 95:9, p. 1575.

Map of the primary study area                     (See PDF file…)