To describe national disparities in retail food environments by neighbourhood composition (race/ethnicity and socio-economic status) across time and space.

We examined built food environments (retail outlets) between 1990 and 2014 for census tracts in the contiguous USA (n 71 547). We measured retail food environment as counts of all food stores, all unhealthy food sources (including fast food, convenience stores, bakeries and ice cream) and healthy food stores (including supermarkets, fruit and vegetable markets) from National Establishment Time Series business data. Changes in food environment were mapped to display spatial patterns. Multi-level Poisson models, clustered by tract, estimated time trends in counts of food stores with a land area offset and independent variables population density, racial composition (categorised as predominantly one race/ethnicity (>60 %) or mixed), and inflation-adjusted income tertile.

The contiguous USA between 1990 and 2014.

All census tracts (n 71 547).

All food stores and unhealthy food sources increased, while the subcategory healthy food remained relatively stable. In models adjusting for population density, predominantly non-Hispanic Black, Hispanic, Asian and mixed tracts had significantly more destinations of all food categories than predominantly non-Hispanic White tracts. This disparity increased over time, predominantly driven by larger increases in unhealthy food sources for tracts which were not predominantly non-Hispanic White. Income and food store access were inversely related, although disparities narrowed over time.

Our findings illustrate a national food landscape with both persistent and shifting spatial patterns in the availability of establishments across neighbourhoods with different racial/ethnic and socio-economic compositions.

To examine socio-economic inequalities in decreases in household sugar purchasing in Great Britain (GB).

Longitudinal, population-based study.

Data were obtained from the GB Kantar Fast-Moving Consumer Goods (FMCG) panel (2014–2017), a nationally representative panel study of food and beverages bought and brought into the home. We estimated changes in daily sugar purchases by occupational social grade from twenty-three food groups, using generalised estimating equations (household-level clustering).

British households who regularly reported food and beverages to the GB Kantar FMCG (n 28 033).

We found that lower social grades obtained a lower proportion of sugar from healthier foods and a greater proportion of sugar from less healthy foods and beverages. In 2014, differences in daily sugar purchased between the lowest and the highest social grades were 3·9 g/capita/d (95 % CI 2·9, 4·8) for table sugar, 2·4 g (95 % CI 1·8, 3·1) for sugar-sweetened beverages, 2·2 g (95 % CI 1·5, 2·8) for chocolate and confectionery and 1·0 g (95 % CI 0·7, 1·3) for biscuits. Conversely, the lowest social grade purchased less sugar from fruits (2·1 g (95 % CI 1·5, 2·8)) and vegetables (0·7 g (95 % CI 0·5, 0·8)) than the highest social grade. We found little evidence of change in social grade differences between 2014 and 2017. These results suggest that recent overall declines in sugar purchases are largely equally distributed across socio-economic groups.

This suggests that recent population-level policy activity to reduce sugar consumption in GB does not appear to exacerbate or reduce existing socio-economic inequalities in sugar purchasing. Low agency, population-level policies may be the best solution to improving population diet without increasing inequalities.