
New research from The University of Texas at Dallas suggests food deserts might be more prevalent in the U.S. than the numbers reported in government estimates.
In a feasibility
study published in the journal
Frontiers in Public Health, scholars found that the methods used by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) to identify areas with low access to healthy food are often outdated and narrow in scope.
Their findings indicate that crowdsourced information gathered from mobile apps such as Yelp could help provide more accurate real-time representation of food deserts in impoverished communities.
“Using data from the city of Dallas, we compared our results with the 2015 USDA database and discovered the agency needs an up-to-date source of information on grocery stores,” said
Dr. Dohyeong Kim, associate professor of public policy and political economy and of geospatial information sciences in the
School of Economic, Political and Policy Sciences at UT Dallas. “The number of food deserts may be a lot larger than what the USDA says it is.”

Researchers from The University of Texas at Dallas and UT Southwestern Medical Center are investigating new ways to use old mobile phone technology to help first responders in developing countries reduce the time it takes to transport traffic accident victims to hospitals.
Part of the research involves using data collection methods to identify areas of large cities that are prone to traffic-related injuries but lack information to allocate limited resources optimally.
“We are assisting in the area of injury research,” said
Dr. Dohyeong Kim, associate professor of public policy and political economy and of geospatial information sciences in the
School of Economic, Political and Policy Sciences at UT Dallas. “We want to use traditional cellphone technology in wide use in these countries to provide more accurate accident location information to first responders.”
Kim and
Dr. Fiemu Nwariaku, professor of surgery and associate dean of global health at UT Southwestern, are co-principal investigators on a $427,000, two-year grant from the National Institutes of Health’s Fogarty International Center (
grant R21TW010991) to promote health across the globe. Kim and Nwariaku will spend the next two years developing ways to leverage existing, low-cost mobile phone technology in Lagos, Nigeria, to help roadway accident victims.

Does living closer to a fire station equate to a higher level of safety? It’s a commonly held belief, and now
Dr. Dohyeong Kim at The University of Texas at Dallas has gathered empirical evidence that does indeed support that assertion.
“It was unclear if location characteristics relating to the accessibility of fire protection services were risk factors for unintentional residential fire-related injuries in urban areas,” said Kim, an associate professor of public policy and political economy in the
School of Economic, Political and Policy Sciences. “Our study aimed to measure spatial accessibility to fire protection services at the census block group level and to examine whether it is associated with unintentional residential fire-related injuries.”

Luego de la visita de la Ph.D. Deborah Carroll (University of Central Florida), quien abrió este ciclo con su conferencia sobre “Federalismo”, fue el turno de Dohyeong Kim, quien expuso sus ideas sobre Salud, con el objetivo de generar espacios de aprendizaje y discusión en el ámbito académico, y con actores del sector público y sector privado.
Las tres conferencias de Kim fueron:
- “El valor de la información en los modelos analíticos para la toma de decisiones sobre políticas de salud basadas en evidencias»
- «Desiertos alimentarios vs. jungla de alimentos: comprensión de los patrones espaciales del consumo de alimentos en Corea»
- «El rol del enfoque espacial en la gestión ambiental y la evaluación del impacto ambiental: caso de Carolina del Norte»
El Ciclo de Charlas cuenta con el auspicio de la Embajada de los EEUU y el apoyo del Gobierno de la Provincia de Santa Fe.
Además, durante su visita, el catedrático fue recibido por autoridades del Ministerio de Salud, visitó centros de Salud y organismos de la ciudad y la provincia como el Hospital José María Cullen, el LIF (Laboratorio Industrial Farmacéutico) y el CEMAFE (Centro de Especialidades Médicas Ambulatorias de Santa Fe).