To examine the relationship between density of fast food restaurants and measures of social and material deprivation at the community level in Nova Scotia, Canada.
Census information on population and key variables required for the calculation of deprivation indices were obtained for 266 communities in Nova Scotia. The density of fast food restaurants per 1000 individuals for each community was calculated and communities were divided into quintiles of material and psychosocial deprivation. One-way analysis of variance was used to investigate associations between fast food outlet densities and deprivation scores at the community level.
A statistically significant inverse association was found between community-level material deprivation and the mean number of fast food restaurants per 1000 people for Nova Scotia (p