The food retail environment is an important determinant of food access and the ability to achieve a healthy diet. However, immigrant communities may procure their food in different ways than the mainstream population owing to preferences for specific cultural products or limited English language proficiency. The objective of this analysis was to describe the grocery shopping patterns and behaviours of one of the largest immigrant groups in New York City, Chinese Americans – a group experiencing high poverty and cardio-metabolic disparities.

Cross-sectional survey data.

Community-based sample.

Self-identified Chinese Americans in the New York metropolitan area (n 239).

Three shopping patterns were identified: type 1: shopped weekly at an ethnic grocery store – and nowhere else; type 2: shopped weekly at a non-ethnic grocery store, with occasional shopping at an ethnic store and type 3: did not perform weekly shopping. Type 1 v. type 2 shoppers tended to have lower education levels (37·5 v. 78·0 % with college degree); to be on public insurance (57·6 v. 22·8 %); speak English less well (18·4 v. 41·4 %); be food insecure (47·2 v. 24·2 %; P < 0·01 for all) and to travel nearly two miles further to shop at their primary grocery store (β = −1·55; 95 % CI −2·81, −0·30).

There are distinct grocery shopping patterns amongst urban-dwelling Chinese Americans corresponding to demographic and sociocultural factors that may help inform health interventions in this understudied group. Similar patterns may exist among other immigrant groups, lending preliminary support for an alternative conceptualisation of how immigrant communities interact with the food retail environment.

To examine where residents in an area with limited access to healthy foods (an urban food desert) purchased healthier and less healthy foods.

Food shopping receipts were collected over a one-week period in 2013. These were analysed to describe where residents shopped for food and what types of food they bought.

Two low-income, predominantly African-American neighbourhoods with limited access to healthy foods in Pittsburgh, PA, USA.

Two hundred and ninety-three households in which the primary food shoppers were predominantly female (77·8 %) and non-Hispanic black (91·1 %) adults.

Full-service supermarkets were by far the most common food retail outlet from which food receipts were returned and accounted for a much larger proportion (57·4 %) of food and beverage expenditures, both healthy and unhealthy, than other food retail outlets. Although patronized less frequently, convenience stores were notable purveyors of unhealthy foods.

Findings highlight the need to implement policies that can help to decrease unhealthy food purchases in full-service supermarkets and convenience stores and increase healthy food purchases in convenience stores.

To simultaneously identify consumer segments based on individual-level consumption and community-level food retail environment data and to investigate whether the segments are associated with BMI and dietary knowledge in China.

A multilevel latent class cluster model was applied to identify consumer segments based not only on their individual preferences for fast food, salty snack foods, and soft drinks and sugared fruit drinks, but also on the food retail environment at the community level.

The data came from the China Health and Nutrition Survey (CHNS) conducted in 2006 and two questionnaires for adults and communities were used.

A total sample of 9788 adults living in 218 communities participated in the CHNS.

We successfully identified four consumer segments. These four segments were embedded in two types of food retail environment: the saturated food retail environment and the deprived food retail environment. A three-factor solution was found for consumers’ dietary knowledge. The four consumer segments were highly associated with consumers’ dietary knowledge and a number of sociodemographic variables.

The widespread discussion about the relationships between fast-food consumption and overweight/obesity is irrelevant for Chinese segments that do not have access to fast food. Factors that are most associated with segments with a higher BMI are consumers’ (incorrect) dietary knowledge, the food retail environment and sociodemographics. The results provide valuable insight for policy interventions on reducing overweight/obesity in China. This study also indicates that despite the breathtaking changes in modern China, the impact of ‘obesogenic’ environments should not be assessed too strictly from a ‘Western’ perspective.