Increasing School Meal Participation

Stanford University

Status: Completed

Conditions: Nutrition, Healthy

Treatments: Behavioral: School meal messages; Behavioral: Control (neutral) messages

Study type: Interventional

Funder types: Other

Identifiers

NCT06419218

75335

Details and patient eligibility

About

This study aims to determine whether an online marketing campaign increases children's school meal participation. Parents whose children do not currently eat school meals frequently will be exposed to messages designed to encourage their children's increased participation in school meals.

Full description

In this 6-week-long online randomized controlled trial, participants will be randomized to one of two arms: 1) Control (neutral) messages or 2) Messages designed to increase school meal participation. In each arm, participants will join private Facebook groups corresponding to their study arm. The study team will post campaign messages to these groups. Participants will answer online survey questions before and after the study on their attitudes about school meals and their child's participation in school meals.

Enrollment: 832 patients

Sex: All

Ages: 18+ years old

Volunteers: Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

• 18 years or older
• Parent of a child attending a public school in grades 1-5
• Resides in one of the following states: California, Colorado, Maine, Minnesota, Michigan, Massachusetts, New Mexico, Vermont
• Has internet access
• Has a Facebook account
• Child consumes 3 or fewer school lunches per week or 3 or fewer school breakfasts per week

Exclusion criteria

• Younger than 18 years old
• Does not have a child attending a public school in grades 1-5
• Resides out of one of the following states: California, Colorado, Maine, Minnesota, Michigan, Massachusetts, New Mexico, Vermont
• Does not have internet access
• Does not have a Facebook account
• Child consumes more than 3 school lunches per week and more than 3 school breakfasts per week

Trial design

Primary purpose: Other

Allocation: Randomized

Interventional model: Parallel Assignment

Masking: Single Blind

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832 participants in 2 patient groups

School meal messages

Experimental group

Description:

Participants will view messages focused on the benefits of children eating school meals, using text and images developed based on parent interviews. Participants will view a total of 10 messages.

Treatment:

Behavioral: School meal messages

Control (neutral) messages

Active Comparator group

Description:

Participants will view messages focused on the benefits of children reading. Messages will be matched in length to the experimental messages. Participants will view a total of 10 messages.

Treatment:

Behavioral: Control (neutral) messages