Childhood obesity is a major public health problem in the U.S. among racial and ethnic minorities, including among the growing Latino population in the U.S. One promising but understudied policy for addressing childhood obesity is requiring health warnings on the front of sugar-sweetened beverage (SSB) containers. Pictorial warnings in particular hold promise for overcoming language and literacy barriers. Our proposed project aims to design and evaluate pictorial health warnings on SSBs, with a long-term goal of informing policies that can improve diet, prevent obesity, and ultimately prevent type 2 diabetes and other cardiometabolic diseases among Latino children. The project will address three major gaps by developing pictorial health warnings on SSBs, focusing on Latino populations, and examining the impact of pictorial health warnings on SSB purchasing behavior in a real-world retail environment. Our study population includes Latino parents of children ages 2-12.
Developing and Evaluating the Effectiveness of Pictorial Health Warnings on Sugar-Sweetened Beverages to Overcome Language and Literacy Barriers
Related Research
October 2020
Identifying geographic differences in children’s sugar‐sweetened beverage and 100% fruit juice intake using health system data
This study aimed to demonstrate the feasibility of using health system data to examine the geographic distribution of sugar‐sweetened beverage intake and evaluate neighborhood characteristics associated with intake. Researchers extracted electronic health record data from a sugar‐sweetened beverage and 100% fruit juice screener used for children ages 1 to 17 years in … More
September 2020
Drinking water access in California schools: Room for improvement following implementation of school water policies
This study aimed to investigate how access to free drinking water in California public schools changed after implementation of 2010 federal and state school water policies. Repeated cross-sectional surveys were conducted with administrators in a random sample of California public schools, stratified by school type and urban-centric geography, from 2010 … More
August 2020
Assessing the Implementation of Kids’ Meals Healthy Default Beverage Policies in the State of California and City of Wilmington, Del.
Healthy default beverage (HDB) policies are one policy approach to limiting kids’ sugary drink consumption and encouraging healthier beverage consumption. These policies specifically require restaurants to offer only healthier drinks (e.g., water, milk, 100% juice) instead of sugary drinks as the default options with kids’ meals, a combination of food … More