Start Date: December 2013

ID #: 71502

Principal Investigator: Karen Florez, DrPH, MPH

Organization: RAND Corporation

Funding Round: New Connections Round 7

See more related research

Share


This study will take advantage of a unique natural experiment to evaluate the ways in which the home food environment modifies the effects of a new full-service supermarket on children’s diet in a low-resource, urban, African American neighborhood. The study has two specific aims: 1) to determine the effect of the new supermarket on children’s consumption of fruits, vegetables, and sugar-sweetened beverages, and 2) to test whether specific features of the home environment (i.e., breakfast norms, family food and beverage choices, family eating patterns) and child-feeding practices (i.e., parental restriction or reward with unhealthy snacks) moderate the effect of a new supermarket on children’s consumption of fruits, vegetables, and sugar-sweetened beverages. This study focuses on two lower-income, African American ‘food deserts’ in Pittsburgh, Pa.-the Hill District (intervention) and Homewood neighborhoods (control). Residents with children ages 5 to 13 will be surveyed before and after the opening of the new supermarket.

Related Research

March 2017

Improved Parental Dietary Quality is Associated with Children’s Dietary Intake Through the Home Environment

This study aimed to assess the relative impact of the home food environment on children’s diet after the introduction of a new supermarket in a food desert. This study builds upon a natural experiment to longitudinally examine the food-purchasing behaviors and diets among a randomly selected population of households in two major Pittsburgh food desert More

January 2025

Beyond Food Assistance: A Scoping Review Examining Associations of Nonfood Social Safety Net Programs in the United States With Food Insecurity and Nutrition Outcomes

This scoping review aims to summarize the state of the evidence on associations between participation in nonfood social safety net programs (eg, income assistance, housing assistance) in the United States and food- and nutrition insecurity–related outcomes. Six databases were systematically searched for peer-reviewed articles. Included articles (n = 65) reported on studies that examined 10 unique social More

January 2025

Simulated retail food environments: A literature review of systems science approaches to advance equity in access to healthy diets

As researchers increasingly utilize systems science simulation modeling (SSSM), little is known about how and by whom SSSMs are being leveraged to address inequities in access to healthy diets. We evaluated the extent to which studies (n = 66) employing SSSM to examine retail food environments (RFEs): included three pillars of equity (social position, human capital, socioeconomic More