In late 2019 and early 2020, Master’s students from the University of Iowa Urban and Regional Planning program developed two research projects for SILT. We asked them to help map obesity as it relates to distance to grocery stores, known as “food deserts.” We also asked them to figure out how far a market to sell fresh produce is from most places in Iowa. The results may surprise you.

Below are the maps produced by Shila Morais, who did this research. We thank Shila as well as UI Prof. Steven Spears for his support and supervision of these projects.