ORCID

0009-0009-6431-0378 (Hoglund), 0000-0002-1490-5404 (Park)

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

2026

DOI

10.3389/fpubh.2026.1717358

Publication Title

Frontiers in Public Health

Volume

14

Pages

1717358

Abstract

Food behaviors, food security, and their association with socioeconomic factors constitute a critical area of study with implications for public health, economic stability, and social equity. Understanding these relationships are essential for developing effective policies and interventions that promote sustainable, healthy food systems and greater food equity. This paper employs explainable artificial intelligence (XAI) methods to identify key features influencing household food behaviors. The insights gained from the XAI analysis are further utilized in conjunction with inverse reinforcement learning (IRL) to examine expert behaviors related to eating habits satisfaction. The XAI results reveal that household health conditions, spending patterns, and frequency of store visits are crucial factors influencing their food behaviors and preferences. This can help identify what strategies or behaviors experts use that lead to higher food security, and the action needed to achieve the factors and conditions that create food equity.

Rights

© 2026 Hoglund and Park.

This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original authors and the copyright owners are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

Data Availability

Article states: "The raw data supporting the conclusions of this article will be made available by the authors, without undue reservation."

Original Publication Citation

Hoglund, L., & Park, H. J. (2026). Advancing food equity through explainable AI (XAI): Identifying place-based factors and conditions of food security. Frontiers in Public Health, 14, Article 1717358. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpubh.2026.1717358

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