Courtesy of American Heart Association

A study reviewing data from nearly 3,000 counties in the United States has found that living in a community with easy access to grocery stores and affordable, healthy food is associated with lower heart failure death rates, according to new research published today in Circulation: Heart Failure, an American Heart Association journal. Food insecurity occurs when healthy food is not readily available on a daily basis, due to poverty or socioeconomic challenges, causing people to go hungry or eat food that is of reduced quality, variety or desirability. While previous research has confirmed that food insecurity is associated with adverse cardiovascular outcomes, little research is available about the local food environment and its potential relationship to death from heart failure. A 2019 paper published in the Journal of the American Heart Association found that, on a county level in the U.S., poverty was the strongest socioeconomic factor associated with heart failure and coronary heart disease, and the association was stronger for heart failure than coronary heart disease