Neighborhood sociodemographic characteristics and healthfulness of store checkouts in Northern California

Placement of products at food store checkouts has been shown to trigger impulse purchases and child purchasing requests. Therefore, food companies pay substantial amounts of money to ensure their products are placed at checkout, and these products are mostly unhealthy (e.g., sugar-sweetened beverages [SSBs], candy, chips). To improve the healthfulness of store environments, Berkeley, CA, U.S. became the first jurisdiction globally to implement a healthy checkout policy. This study examined associations between store neighborhood characteristics and healthfulness of foods and beverages offered at checkout to understand the potential for healthy checkout policies, such as Berkeley's healthy checkout ordinance (HCO), to promote equitable food environments. Data on a near census of food and beverage facings (n = 26,758) at sampled checkouts were collected from 102 food stores (supermarkets, grocery stores, drugstores, dollar stores, specialty food stores, and mass merchandisers) across four Northern California cities (Berkeley, Oakland, Davis, and Sacramento) in February 2021. Bivariate regression analyses revealed that neighborhoods with lower socioeconomic status (SES) and higher Black and Hispanic residential composition had a higher prevalence of foods and beverages that did not meet HCO standards, including associations with a higher prevalence of sweets, higher prevalence of SSBs, and/ or lower prevalence of healthy foods at checkout. Findings suggest that the checkout environment may be one of many contributors to diet-related health disparities. Additionally, healthy checkout policies may have the potential to increase nutrition equity by improving food environments across neighborhoods and especially in areas with lower SES and higher Black and Hispanic composition.