Investigating mobility-based fast food outlet visits as indicators of dietary intake and diet-related disease
Authors: Horn Abigail L. , Bell Brooke M. , Garcia Bulle Bueno Bernardo , Bahrami Mohsen , Bozkaya Burcin , Cui Yan , Wilson John P. , Pentland Alex , Moro Esteban , de la Haye Kayla 
Published: October 2021

Importance

Excessive consumption of fast food (FF) is associated with chronic disease. Population-level research on FF outlet visits is now possible with mobility data, however its usefulness as an indicator of FF intake and diet-related disease must be established.

Objective

Investigate whether FF outlet visits from mobility data are indicators of self-reported FF intake, obesity, and diabetes, and compared with self-reported intake, equivalent or better indicators of obesity and diabetes.

Design, Setting, and Participants

A secondary analysis of data from a representative sample of 8,036 adult residents of Los Angeles County (LAC) from the 2011 Los Angeles County Health Survey (LACHS), and mobility data representing all geolocations between October 2016 - March 2017 of 243,644 anonymous and opted-in smartphone users in LAC.

Main Outcomes and Measures

Main outcomes were self-reported FF intake frequency (never, infrequent, moderate, frequent), obesity, and diabetes from LACHS. FF outlet visits were computed as the temporal frequency of FF visits (FF visits/time) and the ratio of visits to FF over all food outlets (FF visits/food), summarized over smartphone users in a neighborhood, scaled from 0-10, and linked to LACHS respondents by census tract.

Results

The analytic sample included 5,447 LACHS respondents and 234,995 smartphone users with 14,498,850 visits to food outlets. FF outlet visits were significantly associated with self-reported FF intake (reference: never) for both FF visits/time (infrequent: odds ratio [OR], 1.13; 95% CI, 1.06-1.20; frequent: OR, 1.35; 95% CI, 1.28-1.42) and FF visits/food (infrequent: OR, 1.12; 95% CI, 1.06-1.17; frequent: OR, 1.28; 95% CI, 1.22-1.33). FF outlet visits were significantly associated with obesity (FF visits/time: adjusted OR [AOR], 1.16; 95% CI, 1.12-1.21; FF visits/food: AOR, 1.13; 95% CI, 1.10-1.17) and diabetes (FF visits/time: AOR, 1.15; 95% CI, 1.09-1.21; FF visits/food: AOR, 1.11; 95% CI, 1.07-1.16), adjusted for sociodemographic factors. Models of the association between FF outlet visits and obesity or diabetes had better fits than between self-reported FF intake and obesity or diabetes.

Conclusions and relevance

This study illustrates that population-scale mobility data provide useful, passively-collected indicators of FF intake and diet-related disease within large, diverse urban populations that may be better than self-report intake.

Key Points

Question

Do visits to fast food outlets observed in mobility data provide meaningful measures of fast food intake, and when compared with self-reported intake, equivalent or better indicators of diet-related disease?

Findings

In this cross-sectional Los Angeles County study from a survey of 8,036 adults and mobility data from 243,644 smartphone users with 14.5 million food outlet visits, neighborhood-level features representing visits to fast food outlets were significantly associated with self-reported fast food intake, significantly associated with obesity and diabetes, and were a better predictor of these diseases than self-reported fast food intake.

Meaning

Measures of food behaviors observed in population-scale mobility data can provide meaningful indicators of food intake and diet-related diseases, and could complement existing dietary surveillance methods.