Food Market Measures Toolkit: Assessment of Food Environment, Consumers, and Store Owners

The Food Market Measures Toolkit compiles, categorizes, and describes healthy food retail measures to assist researchers and public health practitioners in selecting the appropriate measurement tool for their work. While a majority of measures focus on store environment and availability of healthy food, this guide also includes measures of consumer and store-owner perspectives. In addition, More

Easy-to-Understand Calorie Information Reduces Sugary Drink Purchases Among Teens

Sugar-sweetened beverages (SSB) are an important contributor to adolescent obesity. One promising environmental strategy to reduce consumption of SSBs is to provide consumers with easily understandable caloric information. This infographic examines the effect of in-store calorie signage on adolescent sugary drink purchases. Findings presented in this infographic come from a related HER-funded journal article.

Reducing Sugar-Sweetened Beverage Consumption by Providing Caloric Information: How Black Adolescents Alter Their Purchases and Whether the Effects Persist

This paper examines the ways in which adolescents altered the type and size of their purchases of sugar-sweetened beverages (SSBs) in response to an intervention in six corner stores located in lower-income, predominately black neighborhoods in Baltimore, Maryland. Researchers used one of four randomly posted signs with caloric information about a 20 ounce SSB: 1) More

Moving from Policy to Implementation: A Methodology and Lessons Learned to Determine Eligibility for Healthy Food Financing Projects

Financing programs to incentivize healthy food retail development in communities classified as “underserved” are taking place at the local, state, and national levels. Implementing these policies requires a clear definition of eligibility for program applicants and policy administrators. This paper describes a process to implement an eligibility analysis for healthy food financing programs and shares More

Lessons Learned from Small Store Programs to Increase Healthy Food Access

This paper presents the experiences and lessons learned from small food store interventions in four U.S. cities – Baltimore, Md.; Minneapolis, Minn.; Burlington, N.C.; and Philadelphia, Pa. Experiences from these four communities indicate that small store interventions face a variety of challenges that impact feasibility, acceptability, and long-term success. Particularly challenging issues included: understanding and More

The Effect of Prices on Nutrition: Comparing the Impact of Product- and Nutrient-Specific Taxes

This paper analyzes the role of prices in determining food purchases and nutrition using a detailed transaction-level observation for a large, nationally-representative sample of U.S. consumers over the years 2002-2007. Using structural demand estimates, researchers simulated the effect of a 20 percent product tax on soda, other sugar-sweetened beverages, packaged meals, and snacks, and 20 More

Validity of Secondary Retail Food Outlet Data: A Systematic Review

To characterize retail food environments and identify areas with limited retail access, researchers, government programs, and community advocates have primarily used secondary retail food outlet data sources. This systematic review examines the evidence for validity reported for secondary retail food outlet data sources for characterizing retail food environments. A literature search was conducted through December More

Impact of the Revised Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) Food Package Policy on Fruit and Vegetable Prices

In 2009, the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) was modified to align the WIC food packages with the 2005 Dietary Guidelines for Americans. As part of the revisions, WIC added a fruit and vegetable (F/V) voucher to the food packages. This paper describes a quasi-experimental study that examined whether F/V More