Abstract A054: Fast food, slow burn: The inflammatory impact of food swamps

Food insecurity affects 50 million Americans, influencing dietary patterns and health. Unhealthy food environments, including food swamps are dominated by energy-dense, nutrient-poor foods creating barriers to a healthy diet. Individuals in food swamps may face higher risks inflammation-related conditions. The Dietary Inflammatory Index (DII) quantifies a diet’s inflammatory potential, but limited research examines how food swamps influence DII scores, especially among socioeconomically disadvantaged populations. In this study, we examined the relationship between food swamp status and DII, hypothesizing that individuals in high-food swamp areas will have higher DII scores, reflecting a more pro-inflammatory diet, compared to those in low-food swamp areas. Among 30,183 participants from the Reasons for Geographic and Racial Differences in Stroke Cohort (REGARDS), we found that people living in high-food swamps areas were more likely to be high school graduates, female sex at birth, earn less than $20K annually, White, and those who are married or widowed. Average DII scores were higher in people living in high food swamp areas (mean: 7.2, std: 9.6), as compared to people living in moderate (mean: 6.5, std: 9.3), and low food swamp areas (mean: 6.7, std: 9.5). The mean difference of DII between high food swamp areas with low food swamp areas was (mean difference: 0.4804, 95% CI: 0.0276, 0.9332, p-value = <0.05). These results suggest that poor food environment is associated with individual level dietary and biologic inflammation. Environmental hazard of healthy food options may be associated with deleterious health outcomes via chronic inflammation. Citation Format: Caitlyn R. Grunert, Yolanda Jackson, Sydney Howard, Suzanne Judd, Justin Xavier. Moore. Fast food, slow burn: The inflammatory impact of food swamps [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the 18th AACR Conference on the Science of Cancer Health Disparities; 2025 Sep 18-21; Baltimore, MD. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev 2025;34(9 Suppl):Abstract nr A054.