Using Online Food Retail "Nudges" to Promote Healthier Beverage Intake Among Low-Income Children

NYU Langone Health

Status: Completed

Conditions: Obesity

Treatments: Behavioral: "Nudges" in Web-Based Supermarket

Study type: Interventional

Funder types: Other

Identifiers

NCT06222541

21-01038

Details and patient eligibility

About

The specific aims of this proposal are to 1) develop online food retail nudges to discourage sugary drink purchases and promote healthier substitutes; 2) examine the impact of online store nudges on purchases of sugary drinks in an online randomized controlled experiment with low-income parents, including Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and Women, Infants, and Children (WIC)-participating parents, of children age 1-5 years; and 3) disseminate findings to retailers, including those participating in the SNAP Online Purchasing Pilot.

Enrollment: 2,241 patients

Sex: All

Ages: 18 to 99 years old

Volunteers: Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

For Aim 1, the inclusion criteria are as follows:

• parent (or caregiver) of children ages 1-5 years;
• the ability to read and write in English;
• aged 18 years or older;
• household income at or below 185% of the federal poverty level;
• previously purchased fruit drinks for their children;
• have ever shopped for groceries online in the last 12 months,
• live in the US, and
• have access to a personal computer, laptop, or tablet.

The inclusion criteria for Aim 2 are identical to the inclusion criteria for Aim 1, except the researchers will not aim to recruit exclusively parents who have previously purchased sugary drinks for their children or who have ever shopped for groceries online in the last 12 months.

Exclusion criteria

The exclusion criteria for Aim 1 include:

• not parent (or caregiver) of children ages 1-5 years;
• aged <18 years or >99 years;
• lack the ability to read and speak English;
• household income above 185% the federal poverty level;
• have never purchased fruit drinks for their children;
• have never shopped for groceries online in the last 12 months;
• do not live in the US, and;
• do not have access to a personal computer, laptop, or tablet. The exclusion criteria for Aim 2 are identical to the exclusion criteria for Aim 1, except participants who have never purchased sugary drinks for their children and have never shopped for groceries online in the last 12 months will not be excluded.

Trial design

Primary purpose: Prevention

Allocation: Randomized

Interventional model: Parallel Assignment

Masking: None (Open label)

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2,241 participants in 2 patient groups

"Nudge" Web-Based Supermarket

Experimental group

Description:

Participants will be asked to simulate one grocery shopping trip in a web-based supermarket and to select three unique beverages for their household that their child would drink. Participants randomized to the "nudge" web-based supermarket will view beverages in descending order of healthfulness (i.e., the healthiest beverages will appear at the top of the screen), view a store landing page promoting the healthiest beverages with a health message, and be offered healthier swaps for sugary drinks at point-of-selection (i.e., immediately after selecting an item to be added to their shopping cart).

Treatment:

Behavioral: "Nudges" in Web-Based Supermarket

Standard Web-Based Supermarket

No Intervention group

Description:

Participants will be asked to simulate one grocery shopping trip in a web-based supermarket and to select three unique beverages for their household that their child would drink. Participants randomized to the standard web-based supermarket will not receive any nudges related to health.