Recipient Organization
DUKE UNIVERSITY
BOX 90340 PHYTOTRON BUILDING
DURHAM,NC 27708
Performing Department
(N/A)
Non Technical Summary
The COVID-19 pandemic rapidly increased the use of online grocery platforms. USDA responded by expanding SNAP participation on these platforms. The expansion warrants further inquiry, especially for SNAP participants, as these platforms shape consumer behavior and alter the pricing and marketing of food products. This project will investigate how online grocery shopping affects U.S. consumers, emphasizing SNAP participants. Specifically, we will 1) qualitatively assess the experience of SNAP participants in online grocery stores; 2) use Tufts' online grocery store to test the effects of altering nutrition information on SNAP-eligible consumers; and 3) evaluate SNAP-eligible consumer decision-making about the use of online grocery platforms. In each area, we will assess the ethical implications of the platforms. We will establish an advisory committee to support our investigation and disseminate our findings. Finally, this project will examine the societal implications of the use of online grocery platforms to assess their "merits and risks," in addition to any resulting "unforeseen and unintended consequences." This project addresses Strategic Goal 7 (Provide All Americans Access to a Safe, Nutritious, and Secure Food Supply). Program Priority Areas: 3) Food safety, nutrition, and health; 5) Agriculture systems and technology; and 6) Agriculture economic and rural communities.
Animal Health Component
50%
Research Effort Categories
Basic
50%
Applied
50%
Developmental
(N/A)
Goals / Objectives
Interrogate the implementation of the online EBT SNAP expansion for participants, administrators, and implementers. This objective is to understand how or if online grocery stores systematically exclude or limit access to consumers from low-income or rural households, even with the USDA expansion of SNAP online. Previous research found that administrative communications about online SNAP purchasing were a barrier for SNAP participants adopting SNAP online. We will lead a qualitative study of SNAP participants, administrators, and grocers to assess the access of SNAP participants in the newly expanded online environment. We will extend this effort by analyzing access and exclusion of societal benefits via technology.Evaluate how nutrition visualization shapes consumer behavior online. This objective will assess how to leverage the dynamic environment of online grocers to nudge healthy food choices, particularly for SNAP participants and SNAP-eligible non-participants. In this experiment, we hypothesize that consumer food choices will be affected by (i) visualization of nutrition data (as opposed to a table of nutrition data), (ii) contextualization of an item's nutrition data within the fuller context of selected foods, and (iii) whether individual and contextual nutrition data are presented individually or in concert. Our earlier work shows that giving research participants affirming feedback on healthy choices promotes those choices, so we are interested to learn how contextualizing that information can inform choices. We will test the hypothesis in an online experiment using The Grocery Store at Tufts University. Additionally, we will interrogate the ethical challenge of nudging for the good of consumers, especially when the consumers are from low-income households and the technology or grocery store shape choice.Test consumer response to social and economic implications of online grocers. Informed by the first two objectives and academic and industry literature, we will assess the tradeoffs consumers make to attain the benefits of online grocery shopping, given that online grocery stores collect data and shape choices. We hypothesize that the costs, data sharing, and the capacity to choose (autonomy) while online grocery shopping affects consumers' acceptance and trust of online grocery stores. We will evaluate the tradeoffs of online shopping with a series of experimental vignettes. Finally, we will provide an ethical analysis of the tradeoffs consumers face to gain benefits from online grocery shopping, given the actions and perceived motives of policymakers and retailers.
Project Methods
Objective 1: Interrogate the implementation of the online EBT SNAP expansion for participants, administrators, and implementersMethods--We will collect 60 interviews with various actors involved in the implementation of the SNAP online ordering program. We aim to interview 20 SNAP administrators at the state and local level and 40 SNAP beneficiaries.Data Analysis--Interviews and field notes will be transcribed and analyzed in NVivo 12. We will follow a sequential mixed-methods approach to extend that analysis. In support of Objective 3, we will identify additional parameters drawn from interviews for testing in the online survey.Ethical Analysis - For this and subsequent objectives, we will conduct an ethical analysis of the expansion of online grocery shopping for SNAP participants. The task of ethics is to provide a communicative framework that facilitates dialogue between researchers regarding how to enhance and spread the benefits and mitigate possible harms and costs of the technology-human interface.Communication - The proposed qualitative analysis is poised to yield high-quality publications in public administration journals and public health nutrition journals. The findings will contribute to the public administration literature on the role of technology in shaping how individuals experience and use public policy and provide applied insights on the efficacy of the online ordering program for public health and the general audience. We will consider publications for the ethics work. In addition, we will develop public-facing briefs to communicate the findings to policymakers and the public.Objective 2: Evaluate how nutrition visualization shapes consumer behavior online.Methods--We will examine the effects of two types of nutritional information displays: (1) per-item and (2) per-cart. We plan to use The Grocery Store as a starting point for our experiments. The store already includes functionality for displaying item-level nutrient information. Moving forward, we will test alternative designs for the nutrition facts panel, methods other than crowns for communicating summary nutrition information for an individual product, and various designs for communicating overall nutritional content.Data Analysis - We anticipate analyzing our experiments using ANOVA and pair-wise tests with Bonferroni corrected alphas. If our dependent variables are not normally distributed, we will use the non-parametric analog to ANOVA, such as the Kruskal-Wallis test.Ethical Analysis - We will write a paper using scholarly literature and the research team's discourse that centers and interrogates ethical issues raised by examining nutrition nudges via organization and communication of the nutrition facts panel information.Communication - We anticipate two types of results from this work: techniques and outcomes. We will present our designs at scientific venues for computer science. We will also publish the learned effects in food and nutrition journals and journals interested in ethics of food or technology. We will develop reports to share our findings with the public and policymakers to inform ongoing discussions of nutrition labeling.Objective 3: Test consumer response to social and economic implications of online grocers.Methods - Using a vignette survey method, we will evaluate the willingness to shop and trust an online retailer, given the use of nudges, data collection methods, and goal orientation (health or profits). We will extend this analysis to test the effects of these issues when the buyer is a SNAP participant to determine differential expectations of surveillance for different types of consumers. These domains build on the research team's previous work. In addition, we will assess the literature for additional conditions for vignettes.We will conduct Survey 1, a general survey of online shopping and concerns, with a national sample (n=1,400) in Year 1. Over Years 1 and 2, we will develop Surveys 2 and 3 with the consultation of the Advisory Board. Surveys 2 and 3 of the vignette studies will occur over six months with two samples (n=1,000 for each survey). Over the three surveys, we will have a core set of questions to evaluate the pulse of online shopping.Data analysis--We will use probit and linear probability models to estimate the treatment effects for the primary outcome, the binary measure of willingness to shop. For the secondary measure of trust, we will assume normality. We will assess this with ANOVA and least squares. We will use repeated measures, fixed effects regression, and hierarchical mixed-effects models to analyze the data. With interaction terms, we will evaluate the effect of the context on within- and between-subject decisions. We will test the relationship between willingness to shop and trust. We will consider a conditional, mixed-process model to model jointly the willingness to shop and trust. We will evaluate the models and estimate the treatment effects.Ethical Analysis - We will conduct the ethical analysis using scholarly literature on the ethical implications of online grocery platforms and discursive exchange between the interdisciplinary research team.Communications - We will develop the findings as a report for a general audience and a journal publication in agricultual and applied economics or multidisciplinary jounrals. For the ethics work, we will consider publications that focus on the ethics of food or technology. Finally, we will consider policy briefs that reflect the integration across the surveys and objectives.