Developing and Evaluating Product Messaging

University of North Carolina (UNC)

Status: Completed

Conditions: Cancer of Rectum; Cancer of Colon

Treatments: Other: Combined Warning Labels and Tax; Other: Control; Other: Tax; Other: Warning Labels

Study type: Interventional

Funder types: Other; NIH

Identifiers

NCT04716010

K01HL147713 (U.S. NIH Grant/Contract)

19-3349

Details and patient eligibility

About

Purpose: To assess the impact of taxes, warnings, and a combination of taxes and warnings on US adults' decisions to purchase products that contain red meat in an online grocery store.

Procedures (methods): Participants will be recruited from Prime Panels (an online panel research company). Following online consent, participants will be assigned to one of four trial arms: 1) Control (no warning and no tax), 2) Warnings (all products that contain red meat have a health warning and environmental warning), 3) Tax (30% tax on products that contain red meat), and 4) Combined warning and tax (all products that contain red meat will have the two warnings and a 30% tax). Then, participant will enter an online grocery store reflecting their assigned arm. The participant will be instructed to complete a shopping task in the online grocery store. After completing the shopping task, participants will be redirected to an online survey and answer a series of questions about the shopping task, labels (excluding tax and control groups), and taxes (excluding warning and control groups). Questions will also include standard demographic and health related variables.

Full description

Participants will be recruited from Prime Panels (an online panel research company). Following online consent, participants will be randomly assigned to one of four trial arms affecting the appearance of an online grocery store. Once in the online grocery store, participants will complete a shopping task. The participants will have 9 specified items to add to their shopping cart (1 pizza, 1 burrito, Burger patties [meat or vegetarian], Breakfast sausages [meat or vegetarian], 1 frozen individual meal, 1 loaf of bread, 1 sandwich filling [for example, ham, turkey, or peanut butter], 1 pack of tortillas, 1 taco filling [for example, steak, chicken, or beans]). Participants will be informed that they will not be spending any of their own money to complete the shopping task. After completing the shopping task, participants will be redirected to a survey. They will provide self-reported responses to survey questions (e.g. perceived healthfulness from eating red meat, perceived risk of cancer from eating red meat, thinking about the health/environmental harms of food products). Participants will also answer demographic and health related questions.

Enrollment: 4,160 patients

Sex: All

Ages: 18+ years old

Volunteers: Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

• 18 years or older
• Consumes red meat at least once per week.
• Responsible for at least 50% of grocery shopping for the household.
• Lives in the United States

Exclusion criteria

• Individuals who have participated in research studies from previous aims of this research.

Trial design

Primary purpose: Prevention

Allocation: Randomized

Interventional model: Parallel Assignment

Masking: None (Open label)

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4,160 participants in 4 patient groups

Control

Other group

Description:

Products that contain red meat will not have warning labels or an increase in price.

Treatment:

Other: Control

Warning Labels

Experimental group

Description:

The warning labels are black octagons with white text that appear next to images of products that contain red meat. One label says "WARNING: Eating red meat contributes to colon and rectal cancer" and the other label says "WARNING: Eating red meat harms the environment."

Treatment:

Other: Warning Labels

Tax

Experimental group

Description:

The tax is a 30% increase in the price of products that contain red meat.

Treatment:

Other: Tax

Combined Warning Labels and Tax

Experimental group

Description:

The Combined Warning Labels and Tax arm features both the warning labels and tax. The warning labels are black octagons with white text that appear next to images of products that contain red meat. One label says "WARNING: Eating red meat contributes to colon and rectal cancer" and the other label says "WARNING: Eating red meat harms the environment." The tax is a 30% increase in the price of red meat products.

Treatment:

Other: Combined Warning Labels and Tax