Progress 02/15/14 to 02/14/17
Outputs
Target Audience:During the final year of the grant, the CHOMPS projected continued with the children's healthy snack food coupon intervention in two convenience stores located near K-8 schools in Somerville, MA and Cambridge, MA. These stores were chosen due to their walking proximity to local schools, which serve racially, ethnically, and economically diverse populations. Totaling data from both stores, we recorded over 1,618 purchase observations equaling approximately $3,700 worth of children's food purchases. We also conducted choice experiments with children and adolescents in Somerville and Medford, MA to explore how youth react to different types of discount presentations (i.e. $0.25 versus 25%) and whether the response is linked to developmental differences. A total of 81 children ages 7-12 participated in the choice experiments. Changes/Problems:
Nothing Reported
What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?Training for research assistants and data collectors has been conducted on an on-going basis, as new staff are hired to assist with the project. These staff have included both graduate and undergraduate students. This training includes background information about the intervention, project policies and procedures, hands-on work with the study instruments (Kids Purchase Observation tool, individual assessment survey, the five development assessments, the active promotional scripts). Additionally, the Project Manager for the study, a current doctoral student, has been an integral part of the data management and analysis process, the development of conference posters and presentations, and the delivery of presentations of results. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?Quarterly CHOMPS all-team meetings have been held to communicate study progress and results with Shape Up Somerville, the project's main community partner. A manuscript of the primary results of the intervention is currently in progress and will be submitted for publication to the American Journal of Public Health in Spring 2017; secondary manuscripts on children's autonomous food purchasing habits and on children's understanding of price discounts are in the first stages of preparation and will be submitted to appropriate public health or applied economics journals. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?
Nothing Reported
Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals?
Below is a summary of the results from the CHOMPS project spanning the duration of our grant period. The Coupons for Healthier Options for Minors Purchasing Snacks (CHOMPS) is a USDA-funded pilot project aimed at assessing the potential for kids-only coupons to guide children away from energy-dense nutrient-poor (EDNP) foods towards more healthful snack purchases in non-school environments. The CHOMPS pilot was set in four convenience stores in the Greater Boston Massachusetts area, chosen due to their walking proximity to local schools, which serve racially, ethnically, and economically diverse population. The four-step intervention involved formative research, a natural observation phase, a "coupon intervention" phase, and an individual assessment phase. During the beginning of year one, the CHOMPS project conducted a series of four focus groups with youth in after-school and summer programs in Somerville, MA. Nineteen students, ages 9-15 years old, participated in the discussions covering their snacking habits, shopping habits, and understanding of coupons. Coupon and poster designs were also pilot tested, and students also provided suggestions of stores in which they and their peers shop, providing a starting point for the CHOMPS projects' potential intervention partners. Beginning in October of 2014, the CHOMPS project conducted one round of natural observations and the coupon intervention in one store in the Somerville community. In Store 1, the natural observation phase was conducted over the course of approximately two weeks, and the coupon intervention was completed by the end of December 2014. Of the students observed shopping in Store 1, there was an almost equal split between males and females. About 52% of shoppers were estimated to be 10-12 years of age and the other 48% of shoppers were split almost evenly between the "less than 9" and "13 or older" age groups. During the coupon intervention in Store 1, 626 observations were recorded, and 1.3% of those purchasers used coupons. Even with the low coupon use in this first store, children spent an average of $0.23 less per store visit in the coupon phase, as compared to the natural observation phase. Children during both the natural observation phase and the coupon phase were observed purchasing the same amount of items per visit (2.3), which may indicate that children were not compensating by using the coupon savings to purchases additional snack items (and may have actually been saving money). More generally, children were observed purchasing a range of items, but the majority of them were unhealthy snacks. Chips were most popular (36% of observed purchases), followed by candy (19.1%) and baked goods (15.7%). While the CHOMPS project is not focusing on discounting beverages, it is still interesting to note that 15.3% of items purchased were beverages. During the summer of year 1, children who were likely to have been exposed to the CHOMPS project participated in individual interviews about the in-store coupons, as well as language and cognitive assessments. Sixty-five adolescents in the Somerville, MA area participated from June to August to learn about snack purchasing habits and interest in the intervention. Participants were asked about the CHOMPS posters and coupons, whether they had used the coupons, their opinions on the coupons, questions about pocket money, and questions about snack purchases. In the assessments, participants also completed five developmental tasks. Thirty-nine of the participants were male and 27 of the participants were female. Also, 10.6% of the participants reported seeing the CHOMPS coupons and 37.9% reported seeing the CHOMPS coupons. Of the participants who reported seeing the CHOMPS coupons, 20.8% participants reported using the CHOMPS coupons. During years two and three, the CHOMPS continued with the coupon intervention in three convenience stores located near K-8 schools - one in Somerville, MA, one in Medford, MA, and one in Cambridge, MA. Beginning in October 2015, the CHOMPS project started actively promoting the CHOMPS coupons, in which research assistants talking with adolescents coming into the intervention store to promote the coupons using language focused on price or language focused on health. In this phase, we only promoted healthy snack options. In addition to the price and health promotions, we also utilized a costume intermittently, to assess the any additional effect that might have on children's purchase choices. Totaling data from all three stores, we recorded over 3,400 separate purchase events totaling over $10,000. We noted only modest coupon usage in the intervention phase; however, chip and candy purchases decreased, and the percentage of purchase events that included at least one targeted healthier food item more than doubled. In year 3, we also conducted choice experiments with children and adolescents in afterschool and summer programs Somerville and Medford, MA. A total of 81 children ages 7-12 participated in the choice experiments. These assessments were conducted in order to understand how adolescents comprehend different types of discount presentation (i.e. $0.25 off versus 25% off) and whether or not different developmental differences are linked to their understanding of discount presentation. This research consisted of two parts: 1) a choice experiment and 2) three cognitive tests - the Circle Trace, a math assessment, and a money habits assessment. Results from this portion of the study are still being analyzed, but we expect to gain insights on the factors that influence children and adolescents when spending their own money on snacks. Results from this pilot indicate that kids-only coupons can assist with shifting snacking behavior outside of school settings. We anticipate that such an intervention would be even more impactful when combined with interventions focused on creating healthier corner stores -- a strategy that is increasing in prominence.
Publications
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Other
Year Published:
2017
Citation:
Other - "Presentation has occurred"
Cash, S.B. and A.R. McAlister (2017). Young food consumers: How do children respond to point-of-purchase interventions? AAEA Invited Session Presentation at the American Economics Association/Allied Social Sciences Association Annual Meeting, Chicago, IL.
- Type:
Other
Status:
Other
Year Published:
2016
Citation:
This was a seminar presentation which has occurred.
Cash, S.B. (2016). Like a kid in a candy shop: What do we know about how kids spend their own money? Friedman Seminar, Tufts University, Boston MA (available online at http://nutrition.tufts.edu/video/friedman-seminar-sean-b-cash-phd).
- Type:
Other
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2016
Citation:
Other - "Conference poster"
Cash, S.B.,�A.R. McAlister, C.D. Economos,�M.E. Lehnerd,�W.L. Adamowicz, S.R. Howell, E.L.�Satin-Hernandez and A.L. Gallop (2016).�The use of coupons to motivate�healthier snack food choices among children: Results of the CHOMPS pilot. Poster�presented at the Society for Nutrition Behavior and Education Annual�Conference, San Diego, CA.
- Type:
Other
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2016
Citation:
Other - "Conference poster"
Lehnerd, M.E., A.R. McAlister, C.D. Economos, W.L. Adamowicz, S.R. Howell, E.L. Satin-Hernandez, A.L. Gallop, and S.B. Cash (2016). Motivating�healthier snack�food�choices�among children through�the use�of�coupons:�Results�of the�CHOMPS pilot. Poster presented at the�Tufts Research Day on Global Food Security: Crisis and Opportunity Digital Poster Session, Boston, MA.
- Type:
Journal Articles
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2016
Citation:
This was a published abstract.
Cash, Sean B., A. R. McAlister, C. D. Economos, M. E. Lehnerd, W. L. Adamowicz, S. R. Howell, E. L. Satin-Hernandez, and A. L. Gallop. "The Use of Coupons to Motivate Healthier Snack Food Choices Among Children: Results of the CHOMPS Pilot."�Journal of Nutrition Education and Behavior�48, no. 7 (2016): S114-S115.
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Progress 02/15/15 to 02/14/16
Outputs
Target Audience:During year two, the CHOMPS projected continued with the coupon intervention in two convenience stores located near K-8 schools in Somerville, MA and Medford, MA. These stores were chosen due to their walking proximity to local schools, which serve racially, ethnically, and economically diverse population. Totaling data from both stores, we recorded over 2,900 purchase observations equaling approximately $6,600. We also conducted individual assessments of coupon users and potential coupon users with approximately 65 adolescents in the Somerville, MA area from June to August to learn about snack purchasing habits and interest in the intervention. We also conducted observational project scoping activities in Navajo Nation. Changes/Problems:Due to the substantial snow storms experienced by the Boston area during the winter of 2014/2015, the project experienced delays in data collection due to school and store closures. Since the purchasing observations in stores rely on the presence of children making snack purchases, there were no students to observe during the days (and sometimes weeks) when the Somerville public schools were closed due to snow. Somerville schools were hit particularly hard last winter as some of the schools experienced structural damage from the snow. Additionally, one of the store partners decided to move back their opening time because staff were having difficulty with transportation due to the weather. This meant that the store would be opening after school started, which created a loss in child purchase observations during that time period. Unrelated to the extreme weather delays, we had one store close down their business during our study, leaving us with one fewer store than we anticipated. We attempted to recruit additional stores but it took a while to find a replacement store that met our accessibility and product criteria. While we had originally planned to finish store observations/coupon interventions by June 2015, in the face of these delays we requested and were approved for a no-cost extension through February 14, 2017. However, we anticipate completing in-store data collection by the end of June 2016 and will finish with the children's choice experiments by the end of August 2016. The work that will remain will be related to data entry, cleaning, and analysis, as well as the writing of reports and manuscripts for publication. What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?Training for research assistants and data collectors has been conducted on an on-going basis, as new staff are hired to assist with the project. This training includes background information about the intervention, project policies and procedures, hands-on work with the study instruments (Store Assessment tool, Kids Purchase Observation tool, individual assessment survey, the five development assessments, the active promotional scripts). Additionally, the Project Manager for the study, a current doctoral student, has been an integral part of the data management and analysis process, the development of conference posters and presentations, and the delivery of presentations about preliminary results. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?Quarterly CHOMPS all-team meetings have been held to communicate study progress and results with Shape Up Somerville, the project's main community partner. Since the study is still on-going, study results have not yet been communicated publically to the Somerville community or more widely. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?In the next reporting period, the CHOMPS project will be working in one additional convenience store located in Cambridge, Massachusetts to run the promotional stage of the coupon intervention, including the use of a costume chosen to appeal to the target audience. Additionally, this summer the project is going to conduct assessments to understand how adolescents comprehend different types of price presentation and whether or not different developmental differences are linked to their understanding of price presentation. This research will take place in after-school programs, summer camps, and community center programs and consists of two parts: 1) a choice experiment and 2) three cognitive tests. In the choice experiment (part 1), children will be presented with a scenario in they will be repeatedly given the choice between two products and an opt-out alternative (for a total of 10 times). In each choice set, the child will be provided with information about the type of product and the price. Then they will be asked to choose between different types of discounts and a "neither" option. For example, "This bag of chips usually costs $1. Would you rather purchase the bag of chips for $0.25 off or 25% off?" In the cognitive tests (part 2), we will utilize 1) the Circle Trace, 2) a math assessment, and 3) a money habits assessment. The Circle Trace serves to determine children's control of impulsivity. The math assessment will present the same choices to each child that they saw in the choice experiment, but in this case, we will ask the children to circle the "bigger" or "smaller" number. This will help to provide us with their mathematical understanding of discounts. Data cleaning and analysis, report publication, and dissemination of results at conferences and in journal publications will be the focus of the remaining months of the grant.
Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals?
In July and August 2015, the CHOMPS project conducted 66 individual assessments with adolescents in the Somerville, MA area. In the assessments, participants were asked about the CHOMPS posters and coupons, whether they had used the coupons, their opinions on the coupons, questions about pocket money, and questions about snack purchases. In the assessments, participants also completed five developmental tasks. Thirty-nine of the participants were male and 27 of the participants were female. Also, 10.6% of the participants reported seeing the CHOMPS posters and 37.9% reported seeing the CHOMPS coupons. Of the participants who reported seeing the CHOMPS coupons, 20.8% participants reported using the CHOMPS coupons. In September 2015, the CHOMPS project re-started in-store data collection and the coupon intervention, after having taken a break during the summer (due to school being out of session). Beginning in October 2015, the CHOMPS project started actively promoting the CHOMPS coupons, in which research assistants talking with adolescents coming into the intervention store to promote the coupons using language focused on price or language focused on health. In this phase, we only promoted healthy snack options. In addition to the price and health promotions, we also utilized a costume intermittently, to assess the any additional effect that might have on children's purchase choices. Simultaneously, during October and November of 2015, scoping activity was occurring on the Navajo Nation to assess the feasibility and applicability of pursuing CHOMPs research in rural and remote location. CHOMPS store scoping (n=6 stores) and after school student shopper counts (n=5 stores) were conducted in stores chosen based on being within a one-hour drive of Gallup, NM (location of research assistant) and in approximate walking distance of a grade school. Based on student counts and the availability of healthier snack varieties, the Tohatchi Giant was the most promising venue scoped with 33 observed students making purchases and 24 varieties of snacks. The other stores ranged from 12 to 16 students making purchases after school and having between 10 and 22 snack varieties.Each store had its unique infrastructure-qualities that could potentially draw students after school: one store had a hot foods bar, another had a small Burger King and a third had an ice cream shop. One theme observed across all stores was that even when parentsaccompanied youth into the store, the young person still made his/her own and often unhealthy decisions of whatsnacks to buy. It was also observed that some stores have student bus drop-offs in the parking lot. This could be the case for other stores too and may add a larger store-pool to future CHOMPs scoping. This scoping project provides evidence that Navajo Nation could be a promising location for CHOMPS.
Publications
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Accepted
Year Published:
2015
Citation:
Lehnerd, M.E., S.B. Cash, A.R. McAlister, C.D. Economos & K.H. Panarella (2015). Can coupons get kids to buy healthier snacks? Initial findings from the CHOMPS Project. Presented at the Graduate Student Research Conference at the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and policy, Boston, MA.
- Type:
Other
Status:
Accepted
Year Published:
2015
Citation:
Cash, S.B., A.R. McAlister, C.D. Economos, M.E. Lehnerd, and K.H. Panarella (2015). Can coupons get kids to buy healthier snacks? A multi-disciplinary pilot intervention. Poster presented at the Society for Nutrition Behavior and Education Annual Conference, Pittsburgh, PA.
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2015
Citation:
Cash, Sean, A. McAlister, C. Economos, M. Lehnerd, and K. Panarella (2015). Can Coupons Get Kids to Buy Healthier Snacks? A Multi-Disciplinary Pilot Intervention. Journal of Nutrition Education and Behavior 47, no. 4: S106. doi:10.1016/j.jneb.2015.04.293.
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Accepted
Year Published:
2015
Citation:
Lehnerd, M.E., S.B. Cash, A.R. McAlister, C.D. Economos & K.H. Panarella (2015). Will kids use coupons to buy healthier snacks? Initial findings from the CHOMPS Project. Presented at the American Public Health Association Annual Meeting, Chicago, IL.
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Accepted
Year Published:
2015
Citation:
Cash, S.B., A.R. McAlister, M.E. Lehnerd, K.H. Panarella, and C.D. Economos (2015). Using price promotions to encourage healthier snack purchases by children in corner stores. Special session paper presented at the Agricultural and Applied Economics Association Annual Meeting, San Francisco, CA.
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Progress 02/15/14 to 02/14/15
Outputs
Target Audience: During year one, the CHOMPS project piloted the coupon intervention in two convenience stores located near K-8 schools in Somerville, MA. These stores were chosen due to their walking proximity to local schools, which serve racially, ethnically, and economically diverse population. Totaling data from both stores, we recorded over 1,200 purchase observations equaling approximately $1,350. Changes/Problems: Due to the substantial snow storms experienced by the Boston area during the winter of 2014/2015, the project experienced delays in data collection due to school and store closures. Since the purchasing observations in stores rely on the presence of children making snack purchases, there were no students to observe during the days (and sometimes weeks) when the Somerville public schools were closed due to snow. Additionally, one of the store partners decided to move back their opening time because staff were having difficulty with transportation due to the weather. This meant that the store would be opening after school started, which created a loss in child purchase observations during that time period. While we had originally planned to finish store observations/coupon interventions by June 2015, there may be a need to conduct the intervention in 1-2 more stores during the fall of 2015. What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided? Training for research assistants and data collectors has been conducted on an on-going basis, as new staff are hired to assist with the project. This training includes background information about the intervention, project policies and procedures, and hands-on work with the study instruments (Store Assessment tool and Kids Purchase Observation tool). How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest? Quarterly CHOMPS all-team meetings have been held to communicate study progress and results with Shape Up Somerville, the project's main community partner. Since the study is still on-going, study results have not yet been communicated publically to the Somerville community or more widely. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals? In the next reporting period, the CHOMPS project has already initiated the coupon intervention in store 2, which will be completed by late April/early May. Additionally, store 3 has been recruited and the coupon intervention is in progress. The project's goal is to recruit 1-2 additional stores in which to pilot the intervention prior to the ending of the next reporting period. Additionally, the individual assessment phase is scheduled to be conducted beginning in late May/early June 2015 and will be completed during the summer. Initial scoping to explore the potential for expanding the CHOMPS intervention to the Navajo Nation began in February 2015 and will also be completed by the end of the next reporting period. Data cleaning and analysis, report publication, and dissemination of results will be the focus in the later half of year two, which will be completed by mid-February 2016.
Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals?
During the beginning of year one, the CHOMPS project focused on conducting literature reviews, creating study instruments (the Store Assessment Tool and the Kids Purchase Observation Tool), and training data collectors. Additionally, the CHOMPS project conducted a series of four focus groups with youth in after-school and summer programs in Somerville, MA during the spring & summer of 2014. Nineteen students, ages 9-15 years old, participated in the discussions, in which we covered information regarding their snacking habits, their shopping habits, and their understanding of coupons. The coupons and poster designs were pilot tested during these sessions, and the students also provided suggestions of stores in which they and their peers shop, which provided a starting point for the CHOMPS projects' potential intervention partners. Beginning in October of 2014, the CHOMPS project conducted one round of natural observations and the coupon intervention in one store in the Somerville community. In Store 1, the natural observation phase was conducted over the course of approximately two weeks, and the coupon intervention was completed by the end of December 2014. Of the students observed shopping in Store 1, there was an almost equal split between males and females. About 52% of shoppers were estimated to be 10-12 years of age and the other 48% of shoppers were split almost evenly between the "less than 9" and "13 or older" age groups. During the coupon intervention in Store 1, 626 observations were recorded, and 1.3% of those purchasers used coupons. Even with the low coupon use in this first store, children spent an average of $0.23 less per store visit in the coupon phase, as compared to the natural observation phase. Children during both the natural observation phase and the coupon phase were observed purchasing the same amount of items per visit (2.3), which may indicate that children were not compensating by using the coupon savings to purchases additional snack items (and may have actually been saving money). More generally, children were observed purchasing a range of items, but the majority of them were unhealthy snacks. Chips were most popular (36% of observed purchases), followed by candy (19.1%) and baked goods (15.7%). While the CHOMPS project is not focusing on discounting beverages, it is still interesting to note that 15.3% of items purchased were beverages. In January 2015, the second CHOMPS partner store was recruited and the natural observation phase was completed by mid February 2015, the end of year 1 of the grant.
Publications
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