Building on a Point-of-purchase Intervention to Encourage Healthy Food Choices

October 2, 2015 updated by: Anne N. Thorndike, MD, MPH, Massachusetts General Hospital
This study builds on the framework of a previously implemented color-coded food labeling intervention in a hospital cafeteria by testing the incremental effectiveness of providing employees with individual feedback and incentives for increasing healthy purchases in a 3-arm randomized controlled trial. The investigators hypothesize that employees assigned to receive feedback will increase healthy purchases more than employees who receive no contact and that employees who receive feedback plus incentives will increase healthy purchases more than those who receive feedback alone.

Study Overview

Status

Completed

Conditions

Intervention / Treatment

Study Type

Interventional

Enrollment (Actual)

2672

Phase

  • Not Applicable

Contacts and Locations

This section provides the contact details for those conducting the study, and information on where this study is being conducted.

Study Locations

  • United States
    • Massachusetts
      • Boston, Massachusetts, United States, 02114
        • Massachusetts general hospital

Participation Criteria

Researchers look for people who fit a certain description, called eligibility criteria. Some examples of these criteria are a person's general health condition or prior treatments.

Eligibility Criteria

Ages Eligible for Study

18 years and older (Adult, Older Adult)

Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Yes

Genders Eligible for Study

All

Description

Inclusion Criteria:

  • Employee at Massachusetts General Hospital who uses a cafeteria debit card to pay for cafeteria purchases

Exclusion Criteria:

  • Employees who do not have a cafeteria debit card
  • Employees with cafeteria debit card but who use it fewer than 3 times a month for the 3 months prior to start of trial

Study Plan

This section provides details of the study plan, including how the study is designed and what the study is measuring.

How is the study designed?

Design Details

  • Primary Purpose: Prevention
  • Allocation: Randomized
  • Interventional Model: Parallel Assignment
  • Masking: None (Open Label)

Arms and Interventions

Participant Group / Arm
Intervention / Treatment
No Intervention: Control group
Experimental: Feedback only
Subjects receive feedback letters about the proportion of green, yellow, and red purchases in the cafeteria per month with comparisons to "all employees" and to the "healthiest employees eaters"
Behavioral: Feedback letters
Subjects receive feedback letters about the proportion of green, yellow, and red purchases in the cafeteria per month with comparisons to "all employees" and to the "healthiest employees eaters"
Experimental: Feedback plus incentives
Subjects receive feedback letters plus small incentives to increase healthy (green-labeled) purchases in the next month
Behavioral: Feedback plus incentives
Subjects receive feedback letters plus small incentives to increase healthy (green-labeled) purchases in the next month

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure
Time Frame
Employee purchases of healthy (green-labeled) items
Time Frame: 6 months
6 months

Secondary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure
Time Frame
Employee purchases of unhealthy (red-labeled) items
Time Frame: 6 months
6 months

Collaborators and Investigators

This is where you will find people and organizations involved with this study.

Sponsor

Massachusetts General Hospital

Collaborators

Robert Wood Johnson Foundation

Investigators

  • Principal Investigator: Anne N Thorndike, MD, MPH, Massachusetts general hospital

Publications and helpful links

The person responsible for entering information about the study voluntarily provides these publications. These may be about anything related to the study.

General Publications

Study record dates

These dates track the progress of study record and summary results submissions to ClinicalTrials.gov. Study records and reported results are reviewed by the National Library of Medicine (NLM) to make sure they meet specific quality control standards before being posted on the public website.

Study Major Dates

Study Start

September 1, 2012

Primary Completion (Actual)

May 1, 2013

Study Completion (Actual)

May 1, 2013

Study Registration Dates

First Submitted

May 21, 2012

First Submitted That Met QC Criteria

May 22, 2012

First Posted (Estimate)

May 23, 2012

Study Record Updates

Last Update Posted (Estimate)

October 6, 2015

Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria

October 2, 2015

Last Verified

October 1, 2015

More Information

Terms related to this study

Keywords

Other Study ID Numbers

  • 2011D004784

This information was retrieved directly from the website clinicaltrials.gov without any changes. If you have any requests to change, remove or update your study details, please contact register@clinicaltrials.gov. As soon as a change is implemented on clinicaltrials.gov, this will be updated automatically on our website as well.

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