Parks CA, Mitchell E, Byker Shanks C, Budd Nugent N, Reynolds M, Sun K, Zhang N, Yaroch AL. Which Program Implementation Factors Lead to more Fruit and Vegetable Purchases? An Exploratory Analysis of Nutrition Incentive Programs across the United States.
Curr Dev Nutr 2023;
7:102040. [PMID:
38130331 PMCID:
PMC10733675 DOI:
10.1016/j.cdnut.2023.102040]
[Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/28/2023] [Revised: 11/15/2023] [Accepted: 11/18/2023] [Indexed: 12/23/2023] Open
Abstract
Background
Nutrition incentive (NI) programs help low-income households better afford fruits and vegetables (FVs) by providing incentives to spend on FVs (e.g., spend $10 to receive an additional $10 for FVs). NI programs are heterogeneous in programmatic implementation and operate in food retail outlets, including brick-and-mortar and farm-direct sites.
Objective
This study aimed to explore NI program implementation factors and the amount of incentives redeemed.
Methods
A total of 28 NI projects across the United States including 487 brick-and-mortar and 1078 farm-direct sites reported data between 2020 and 2021. Descriptive statistics and linear regression analyses (outcome: incentives redeemed) were applied.
Results
Traditional brick-and-mortar stores had 0.48 times the incentives redeemed compared with small brick-and-mortar stores. At brick-and-mortar sites, automatic discounts had 3.47 times the incentives redeemed compared with physical discounts; and auxiliary services and marketing led to greater redemption. Farm-direct sites using multilingual and direct promotional marketing had greater incentives redeemed.
Conclusions
To our knowledge, this is the first national study to focus on NI program implementation across sites nationwide. Factors identified can help inform future programming and research.
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