Datasets that are commercially available and contain a wealth of information about food and alcohol establishments are found to differ significantly.
![Inconsistent Datasets Used by Policymakers and Scientists for Public Health Analyses Inconsistent Datasets Used by Policymakers and Scientists for Public Health Analyses](https://images.medindia.net/health-images/1200_1000/Patient-and-Tech.jpg)
There are numerous datasets available for a fee that give detailed information about food and alcohol establishments across the U.S. Typically, these datasets are purchased by companies that use them for marketing purposes. Dr. Mendez and her team used two different commercially available datasets containing information about food and alcohol establishments in Allegheny County, which includes Pittsburgh. The information was divided into the 416 distinct census tracts in the county as a means to define neighborhoods.
Each census tract consists of an average of 4,000 people. Both of the datasets showed that the density of alcohol outlets increased as neighborhood poverty increased. However, the datasets differed when it came to grocery stores. One showed that as poverty increased, the number of grocery stores increased. The other showed no association. "This is a perplexing disagreement that likely comes down to the datasets using different classification systems and also not accurately capturing all the information. For example, because we are familiar with Allegheny County, my team was able to determine that some of the key grocery stores in our area were not included," said Dr. Mendez. "However, if we were doing a similar analysis for a city we were not familiar with, we likely wouldn't catch the discrepancy and could come to an inaccurate conclusion."
Source-Eurekalert