Community-engaged Design and Implementation of a Behavioral Economics Food Choice Intervention in Food Pantries to Improve Cardiovascular Health
Northwestern University
Summary
This study will evaluate a digital nudge intervention, Healthy Options At Pantries (HOAP), in the online food pantries of three large charitable food organizations. The study will use a hybrid effectiveness-implementation design, meaning it will evaluate whether the intervention works and how it can best be rolled out in an online food pantry setting. Intervention effectiveness will be evaluated using an interrupted time series analysis to identify changes in how healthy foods ordered by shoppers are (primary outcome) by comparing food ordering data over time before and after HOAP is introduced. The study will also evaluate the possibility of collecting dietary and clinical outcomes in a small subgroup of online pantry shoppers over time comparing both in-person and at-home approaches.
Description
This study will pilot and evaluate the Healthy Options At Pantries (HOAP) digital nudge intervention that was co-designed by pantry shoppers to encourage healthier food choices in online food pantries. We will evaluate the preliminary effectiveness of HOAP using an interrupted time series (ITS) to determine if HOAP implementation is associated with healthier online pantry orders by shoppers across three community organizations who operate online food pantries. The ITS analysis will compare 6 months of pre-intervention data to 6 months of during-intervention data to assess changes in food selec…
Eligibility
- Age range
- 18+ years
- Sex
- All
- Healthy volunteers
- Yes
Eligibility Criteria: * Adults age 18 years or older * Speak English or Spanish * Access to a smartphone * Have ordered from the online food pantry at least half of the available times over the past 6 pantry eligible periods (for example, at least 3 times in the past 6 weeks for online food pantries that allow weekly ordering or at least 3 times in the past 6 months for online food pantries that allow monthly ordering), during the 6-month period prior to implementation of the HOAP program (i.e., months -6 to -1) * Plan to continue ordering from the online food pantry for the next 6 months Ex…
Interventions
- BehavioralBehavioral economics-based Healthy Options At Pantries (HOAP) digital nudge intervention
Intervention will include behavioral digital nudges over a 6-month period to promote healthier food selection among online food pantry shoppers.
Location
- Northwestern UniversityChicago, Illinois