Front-of-package Label Effects in Latine and Limited English Proficiency Populations

University of North Carolina (UNC)

Status: Completed

Conditions: Diet, Healthy

Treatments: Behavioral: Guideline Daily Amounts label; Behavioral: Separated interpretive magnifying glass icon label; Behavioral: Interpretive text-only label; Behavioral: Interpretive magnifying glass icon label

Study type: Interventional

Funder types: Other

Identifiers

NCT06293963

24-0300a

Details and patient eligibility

About

The goal of this experiment is to examine the effects of 4 types of front-of-package food labels among a sample of Latino adults. The main questions this experiment aims to answer are:

What front-of-package label design is most effective in helping Latino and low English proficiency consumers identify healthier and less healthy food products?

What front-of-package label design is most effective in helping Latino and low English proficiency consumers choose healthier food products?

Additionally, this experiment also aims to answer the following question:

Do the benefits of front-of-package label designs differ by English proficiency and parental status?

Participants will be randomly assigned to 1 of 4 types of front-of-package label designs and view their assigned label design on 3 sets of products. Each set will display 3 similar products, each high in either 1, 2, or 3 nutrients of concern. For each set, participants will select the product that they believe to be the healthiest, least healthy, and the product that they would most want to consume. Researchers will compare results across label designs.

Full description

This study aims to determine which front-of-package label design is most effective at helping Latino consumers identify and choose healthier products, as well as explore whether the benefits of different front-of-package label designs differ by English proficiency. A Latino-focused panel company will recruit 4,000 US Latino adults of parental age (18-55 years), approximately 50% of whom will have limited English proficiency.

In a between-subjects experiment, researchers will randomize participants to 1 of 4 types of front-of-package label designs: a numerical label, an interpretive text-only label, an interpretive label with a magnifying glass icon, or separated interpretive labels with a magnifying glass icon. Participants will view their assigned label design on 3 similar products (each product high in either 1, 2, or 3 nutrients of concern) and complete selection tasks. These tasks will be repeated 3 times, each time with a different type of product (i.e., frozen meals, frozen pizzas, and frozen desserts), with the products displayed in random order.

Enrollment: 3,306 patients

Sex: All

Ages: 18 to 55 years old

Volunteers: Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

• Identifying as Latino or Hispanic
• Ages 18-55 years old
• Residing in US

Exclusion criteria

• Not identifying as Latino or Hispanic
• Less than 18 or greater than 55 years old
• Not residing in the United States

Trial design

Primary purpose: Prevention

Allocation: Randomized

Interventional model: Parallel Assignment

Masking: None (Open label)

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3,306 participants in 4 patient groups

Numerical label

Experimental group

Treatment:

Behavioral: Guideline Daily Amounts label

Interpretive text-only label

Experimental group

Treatment:

Behavioral: Interpretive text-only label

Interpretive magnifying glass icon label

Experimental group

Treatment:

Behavioral: Interpretive magnifying glass icon label

Separated interpretive magnifying glass icon label

Experimental group

Treatment:

Behavioral: Separated interpretive magnifying glass icon label