PlainFoodAccess

Standards · How we work

Editorial & Corrections Policy

PlainFoodAccess turns two federal datasets — the USDA Food Access Research Atlas and the Census American Community Survey — into per-county and per-state food-access pages. This page explains how those pages are produced, the standards we hold them to, and exactly how to flag a number that looks wrong.

How Pages Are Produced

PlainFoodAccess's county and state pages are generated from documented public datasets — the USDA ERS Food Access Research Atlas (2019) for food-access measures, and the Census Bureau American Community Survey (2024 5-year estimates) for population, income, poverty, SNAP, and vehicle access. We load each published file into a structured database and render every page directly from it. The figures you see — low-access share, food-desert tract counts, SNAP participation, no-vehicle households — are computed from the source data, not hand-typed and not invented by us.

This is a data-publishing model: one template renders thousands of pages so every county and state is covered consistently. The editorial work goes into the data pipeline, the methodology, and the written guides — not into hand-authoring near-identical pages, which would add no accuracy and invite inconsistency. We do not claim a human reviews every county page; the accuracy guarantee comes from rendering directly from the verified source datasets, with the data pipeline and methodology documented openly.

How the Food-Access Figures Are Derived

The USDA Atlas publishes its measures at the census-tract level. We aggregate them to the county level by FIPS code: a county's low-access population is the sum of its tracts' low-access counts (USDA's 1-mile-urban / 10-mile-rural measure), and its food-desert tract count is the number of tracts that are both low-income and low-access. State and national shares are population-weighted — total low-access population divided by total tract population — never an unweighted average of county percentages, which would over-weight small rural counties. The two datasets carry different vintages (Atlas 2019, ACS 2024), and every page labels which figure comes from which.

Sourcing Standards

  • Primary sources only. Every figure traces to the USDA Food Access Research Atlas or the Census ACS. Our methodology names each dataset, its vintage, and the specific variables used.
  • Attribution in context. Each data page names its dataset and reference year near the figures, and links to the methodology.
  • No invented data. Where a value is unavailable — for example, the 13 areas (chiefly Connecticut's post-2022 planning regions) that have no 2019 Atlas record — the page says "not available" rather than estimating or filling the gap.
  • No composite scores. We present the USDA's own classifications. We do not compute a proprietary "severity score" or re-rank counties by a formula of our own.

Update Cadence

The USDA publishes Food Access Research Atlas editions periodically — not on a fixed schedule; 2019 is the most recent. The Census ACS releases 5-year estimates annually, typically in December. We refresh our database within 30 days of each new release and recompute the derived figures. The reference years are shown on the data pages and in the methodology.

Corrections Process

If a figure on PlainFoodAccess looks wrong, please tell us. Because our pages are generated from federal data, a genuine error almost always traces back to either the source data or our processing of it:

  1. Report. Email us through the contact page with the page URL and the number that looks off.
  2. Verify. We compare the figure against the USDA Atlas or Census ACS source data for that county and year.
  3. Fix at the source. If the value is wrong on our side, we correct it in the database and pipeline that generate the page — not just on one page — so every affected page is fixed at once. If the figure faithfully reflects the published data, we explain that and add context where useful.
  4. Note it. Material corrections are reflected the next time the page rebuilds, with the reference year shown so you can see which release a page is based on.

We aim to acknowledge data-error reports within a few business days.

Editorial Independence

PlainFoodAccess is an independent publisher and is not affiliated with the USDA, the Census Bureau, or any government agency. Our rankings are computed mechanically from the source data, so no county, state, retailer, or organization can pay to move up a list. Advertising, where present, is clearly distinguishable from editorial content and never determines which counties, indicators, or rankings we show.

Appropriate Use

PlainFoodAccess is for general informational and research purposes only. Food-access figures reflect the cited dataset vintages and the USDA's distance-based methodology, which does not capture every grocery store, mobile vendor, food pantry, or transit option. They describe area-level conditions, not any individual household's situation. For program eligibility or local services, consult the relevant agency or a qualified professional.