Food access is critical to health and well-being. Living in a food desert means getting food may require a personal vehicle or potentially lengthy and time-consuming travel on transit. In lower-income areas, this can be even more challenging due to the added costs of travel.

In 2019, the region had 26 low-income tracts that were food deserts, or 20% of the total low-income tracts in the region. This was above the proportion for the state of 10%. Among counties, Livingston had the highest share of low-income food deserts at 50% of census tracts, though that was only 2 tracts. Monroe County had the most low-income food deserts at 17 tracts, or 20% of the total. Several counties in the region had no low-income food deserts: Genesee, Seneca, Wyoming and Yates.

In this dataset, a food desert is defined as a census tract where at least 500 people or 33 percent of the population live more than 1 mile from the nearest food store (supermarket, supercenter, or large grocery store) in an urban area or more than 10 miles from such a store in a rural area. Tracts are considered low-income if they have a poverty rate of 20% or more or if median family income is below or equal to 80% of the state or metro area median.