Where to find data about food in Pittsburgh
The City of Pittsburgh recently opened applications for its Food Justice Fund. Proposals are due April 14. Grants of up to $75,000 are available to increase food security and improve food systems. https://engage.pittsburghpa.gov/food-justice-fund
A question on the application addresses community needs, so I wanted to provide a few links to places where relevant data can be found. Here’s the question that is asked on the application:
“What communities does this project serve? What community needs will this project address? For example, low-income seniors with food insecurity or a neighborhood without access to nutritious food markets.”
Data from the Census Bureau can describe the community in terms of size, demographics and needs. Colleagues here at the University Center for Social and Urban Research recently updated its community-level reports containing data from the American Community Survey.
https://ucsur.pitt.edu/reports/census-reports
Allegheny County's Department of Human Services has developed an indicator of need in all of the County's communities by bringing together different datasets that show communities where residents face comparatively high socioeconomic barriers. The Community Need Index is a composite indicator that is based on several indicators, including poverty, single parent households, unemployment, low levels of internet access, homicide rates, low levels of educational attainment, and fatal overdoses.
One place to find data about food access is the USDA’s Food Access Research Atlas. It uses data on income from the American Community Survey and data on the locations of grocery stores and supermarkets to highlight areas of the country where people have low incomes and low access to places that sell healthy food nearby. Please note that the data on the map has not been updated since 2019, and data about smaller retailers, farmers markets, community gardens/refrigerators, and food pantries are not used to calculate access to food. Also be aware that the tool may not take our rivers and hillsides into account when making calculations about food access.
https://www.ers.usda.gov/data-products/food-access-research-atlas
A similar tool dating back to 2020 is our community asset map. https://assets.wprdc.org/ It shows data on food retailers, restaurants, etc, but is outdated.
To produce it, we pulled data from a number of different data sources, including data we receive from Allegheny County. This updated data is available on our open data portal.
We currently maintain data on:
Food facilities inspected by Allegheny County’s Health Department
https://data.wprdc.org/dataset/allegheny-county-restaurant-food-facility-inspection-violations
- Weights and Measures inspections by the County (businesses with scales and gas pumps are captured, among other things)
https://data.wprdc.org/dataset/allegheny-county-weights-and-measures-inspections
- Farmers Markets
https://data.wprdc.org/dataset/allegheny-county-farmers-markets-locations
- An older but still useful dataset is Grow Pittsburgh food gardens (we are in need of a data update), but they may have more up-to-date data available on their website.
https://data.wprdc.org/dataset/grow-pittsburgh-food-gardens
- The Greater Pittsburgh Food Bank also provides data on food pantries and other places on their website.
https://pittsburghfoodbank.org/find-food/get-help/
- The United Way’s 211 system is a source for data about needs. Administrative data about helpline requests is available by Zip code, month, and request type on their dashboard - select “food” as the taxonomy group to learn more about how many people called for help finding food.
https://embed.domo.com/embed/pages/yol6W
Keep in mind that you and people in your community may be the best source of information. If you’re already operating a food assistance program, reporting the number of people and meals you serve, who is served, the kinds of help you provide, where it is provided, and the monetary value of the support are ways to quantify your efforts. You can also collect and share stories from the people you serve about how your work has made a difference.
Hopefully, these sources of information can be helpful in your application for funding. Please reach out if we can be of assistance, at wprdc@pitt.edu.