Multi-level Communications and Access Strategies to Improve the Food Environment

Study Summary

The overarching goal of B'More Healthy Retail Rewards (BHRR) is to develop, implement, and evaluate a pilot multi-level communications and pricing intervention to improve access to and consumption of healthy foods in low-income areas of Baltimore City, Maryland. BHRR has three primary aims: (1) to conduct formative research with representatives of multiple levels of the Baltimore food environment (i.e., local wholesalers, retail food store owners, and consumers) in order to select key foods for promotion, and determine appropriate communications and healthy food price reduction strategies, (2) to pilot the multi-level program with 2 local wholesale stores, and 24 small corner stores and their customers, and assess program implementation through detailed process evaluation, and (3) to assess impact of multilevel health communications and pricing strategies, combined and separately, on consumer dietary patterns and food source use, food purchasing behaviors, psychosocial variables, food security, and individual weight and height.

Primary Outcome

We analyzed the average change in consumer purchase of promoted foods and related consumer psychosocial variables across treatment groups from baseline and post-intervention by examine intervention effects by analyzing the change variable obtained by subtracting the pretest score from post-test score (exploratory analysis); and 2) conduct confirmatory testing of intervention effects using ANOVA and mixed models.

Conditions Studied

Interventions

• OTHER Communications
• OTHER Pricing
• OTHER Combined (Communications & Pricing)

Study Locations (1)