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A Multi-Pronged Evaluation of a Healthy Food Access Initiative in Central Texas: Study Design, Methods, and Baseline Findings of the FRESH-Austin Evaluation Study
Food insecurity and limited healthy food access are complex public health issues and warrant multi-level evaluations. The purpose of this paper was to present the overall study design and baseline results of the multi-pronged evaluation of a healthy food access (i.e., Fresh for Less (FFL)) initiativ...
Autores principales: | , , , , , , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
MDPI
2021
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8535966/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34682578 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph182010834 |
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author | Janda, Kathryn M. Ranjit, Nalini Salvo, Deborah Nielsen, Aida Akhavan, Nika Diaz, Martha Lemoine, Pablo Casnovsky, Joy van den Berg, Alexandra |
author_facet | Janda, Kathryn M. Ranjit, Nalini Salvo, Deborah Nielsen, Aida Akhavan, Nika Diaz, Martha Lemoine, Pablo Casnovsky, Joy van den Berg, Alexandra |
author_sort | Janda, Kathryn M. |
collection | PubMed |
description | Food insecurity and limited healthy food access are complex public health issues and warrant multi-level evaluations. The purpose of this paper was to present the overall study design and baseline results of the multi-pronged evaluation of a healthy food access (i.e., Fresh for Less (FFL)) initiative in Central Texas. The 2018–2021 FRESH-Austin study was a natural experiment that utilized a cluster random sampling strategy to recruit three groups of participants (total n = 400): (1) customers at FFL assets, (2) residents that lived within 1.5 miles of an FFL asset, and (3) residents from a comparison community. Evaluation measures included annual cohort surveys, accelerometers and GPS devices, store-level audits, and built environment assessments. Data are being used to inform and validate an agent-based model (ABM) to predict food shopping and consumption behaviors. Sociodemographic factors and food shopping and consumption behaviors were similar across the three groups; however, customers recruited at FFL assets were lower income and had a higher prevalence of food insecurity. The baseline findings demonstrate the need for multi-level food access interventions, such as FFL, in low-income communities. In the future, ABM can be used as a cost-effective way to determine potential impacts of future large-scale food environment programs and policies. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-8535966 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2021 |
publisher | MDPI |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-85359662021-10-23 A Multi-Pronged Evaluation of a Healthy Food Access Initiative in Central Texas: Study Design, Methods, and Baseline Findings of the FRESH-Austin Evaluation Study Janda, Kathryn M. Ranjit, Nalini Salvo, Deborah Nielsen, Aida Akhavan, Nika Diaz, Martha Lemoine, Pablo Casnovsky, Joy van den Berg, Alexandra Int J Environ Res Public Health Article Food insecurity and limited healthy food access are complex public health issues and warrant multi-level evaluations. The purpose of this paper was to present the overall study design and baseline results of the multi-pronged evaluation of a healthy food access (i.e., Fresh for Less (FFL)) initiative in Central Texas. The 2018–2021 FRESH-Austin study was a natural experiment that utilized a cluster random sampling strategy to recruit three groups of participants (total n = 400): (1) customers at FFL assets, (2) residents that lived within 1.5 miles of an FFL asset, and (3) residents from a comparison community. Evaluation measures included annual cohort surveys, accelerometers and GPS devices, store-level audits, and built environment assessments. Data are being used to inform and validate an agent-based model (ABM) to predict food shopping and consumption behaviors. Sociodemographic factors and food shopping and consumption behaviors were similar across the three groups; however, customers recruited at FFL assets were lower income and had a higher prevalence of food insecurity. The baseline findings demonstrate the need for multi-level food access interventions, such as FFL, in low-income communities. In the future, ABM can be used as a cost-effective way to determine potential impacts of future large-scale food environment programs and policies. MDPI 2021-10-15 /pmc/articles/PMC8535966/ /pubmed/34682578 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph182010834 Text en © 2021 by the authors. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). |
spellingShingle | Article Janda, Kathryn M. Ranjit, Nalini Salvo, Deborah Nielsen, Aida Akhavan, Nika Diaz, Martha Lemoine, Pablo Casnovsky, Joy van den Berg, Alexandra A Multi-Pronged Evaluation of a Healthy Food Access Initiative in Central Texas: Study Design, Methods, and Baseline Findings of the FRESH-Austin Evaluation Study |
title | A Multi-Pronged Evaluation of a Healthy Food Access Initiative in Central Texas: Study Design, Methods, and Baseline Findings of the FRESH-Austin Evaluation Study |
title_full | A Multi-Pronged Evaluation of a Healthy Food Access Initiative in Central Texas: Study Design, Methods, and Baseline Findings of the FRESH-Austin Evaluation Study |
title_fullStr | A Multi-Pronged Evaluation of a Healthy Food Access Initiative in Central Texas: Study Design, Methods, and Baseline Findings of the FRESH-Austin Evaluation Study |
title_full_unstemmed | A Multi-Pronged Evaluation of a Healthy Food Access Initiative in Central Texas: Study Design, Methods, and Baseline Findings of the FRESH-Austin Evaluation Study |
title_short | A Multi-Pronged Evaluation of a Healthy Food Access Initiative in Central Texas: Study Design, Methods, and Baseline Findings of the FRESH-Austin Evaluation Study |
title_sort | multi-pronged evaluation of a healthy food access initiative in central texas: study design, methods, and baseline findings of the fresh-austin evaluation study |
topic | Article |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8535966/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34682578 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph182010834 |
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