Map shows 'grocery gap' in Mass.; 2.8 million in state are more than a mile from a grocery

A map released Wednesday by the Massachusetts Public Health Association shows the state's "grocery gap," its name for "areas with the highest percentage of low-income residents lacking access to grocery stores," which is considered living at least one mile from a grocery, Michael Norton reports for MassLive. The map used data from The Food Trust, "a national organization, that relied on data pinpointing low-income areas and the locations of stores with annual sales volumes of $2 million or more, which researchers said is the standard definition of a supermarket."

The MPHA said 2.8 million people in Massachusetts lack one-mile access to grocery stores, including more than 700,000 children and about 523,000 senior citizens, Norton writes. Many of those people live in rural areas. (Areas in Massachusetts that lack grocery stores)