A Trial of Traffic Light Labeling With Behavioral Nudges and a Healthy Recipe Database to Increase Selection of Healthier Foods in Client-choice Food Pantries

Mass General Brigham

Status: Terminated

Conditions: Food Selection

Treatments: Behavioral: Healthy Pantry Program; Other: Waitlist Control

Study type: Interventional

Funder types: Other

Identifiers

NCT04243252

2019P003211

Details and patient eligibility

About

This study is a pilot evaluation of the Healthy Pantry Program, a new behavioral economics-based training that allows pantry staff to learn how to implement nudges integrating traffic-light nutrition labeling and a healthy recipe database in the pantry environment. The hypothesis is that participation the Healthy Pantry Program will lead to increases in pantry purchases of healthy foods.

Full description

Food insecurity affects more than one in 10 Americans and is associated with poor nutrition and adverse health outcomes, including diabetes, hypertension, and mental health issues. Many food-insecure individuals use food pantries, which provide charitable food, to supplement household food needs. The emergence of client-choice food pantries, where individuals can select the foods they take home, provides a novel opportunity to intervene on the diets of food pantry clients.

This study evaluates the Healthy Pantry Program (HPP) in a sample of 10 food pantries in the greater Boston area. Pantries will be matched on baseline characteristics and randomized 1:1 into participation in HPP (intervention) or wait list (control). Outcomes data will be collected at the pantry and client level. The aims of the study are as follows:

Aim 1: To evaluate whether HPP is associated with increased healthy food purchases from the food bank by intervention food pantries compared to control food pantries.

Aim 2: To evaluate whether HPP is associated with increases in the availability of healthy food in intervention food pantries compared to control food pantries.

Aim 3: To evaluate whether HPP is associated with an increase in healthy food selection and dietary intake by clients of intervention food pantries compared to clients of control food pantries, using a cross-sectional sample of 400 food pantry clients at baseline and 400 food pantry clients at 6-month follow up.

Enrollment: 3 patients

Sex: All

Ages: 18+ years old

Volunteers: Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion and exclusion criteria

Pantry Inclusion Criteria:

• maximum client-choice (clients can choose all items that they take from pantry)
• operate at least once weekly
• affiliated with the Greater Boston Food Bank

Pantry Exclusion Criteria:

• not affiliated with the Greater Boston Food Bank
• operating less than once weekly
• not a maximum client-choice food pantry
• >1 hr drive from Boston
• <50 clients on average per open day

Client Inclusion Criteria (for cross-sectional surveys at baseline and 6-month follow up):

• ≥18 years old
• pantry client
• speaks English or Spanish

Client Exclusion Criteria:

• <18 years old
• does not speak English or Spanish

Trial design

Primary purpose: Prevention

Allocation: Randomized

Interventional model: Parallel Assignment

Masking: None (Open label)

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3 participants in 2 patient groups

Intervention Food Pantries

Experimental group

Description:

Food pantries will complete online training to help them rank foods by nutritional value and promote those foods to pantry clients; the effect on pantries and their clients will be measured.

Treatment:

Behavioral: Healthy Pantry Program

Control Food Pantries

Active Comparator group

Description:

Food pantries will continue to operate as usual during the study period; the effect on pantries and their clients will be measured.

Treatment:

Other: Waitlist Control