Healthy Options At Pantries (HOAP) Study

Overview

This study will evaluate a digital nudge intervention, Healthy Options At Pantries (HOAP), in the online food pantries of three large charitable food organizations. The study will use a hybrid effectiveness-implementation design, meaning it will evaluate whether the intervention works and how it can best be rolled out in an online food pantry setting. Intervention effectiveness will be evaluated using an interrupted time series analysis to identify changes in how healthy foods ordered by shoppers are (primary outcome) by comparing food ordering data over time before and after HOAP is introduced. The study will also evaluate the possibility of collecting dietary and clinical outcomes in a small subgroup of online pantry shoppers over time comparing both in-person and at-home approaches.

This study will pilot and evaluate the Healthy Options At Pantries (HOAP) digital nudge intervention that was co-designed by pantry shoppers to encourage healthier food choices in online food pantries. We will evaluate the preliminary effectiveness of HOAP using an interrupted time series (ITS) to determine if HOAP implementation is associated with healthier online pantry orders by shoppers across three community organizations who operate online food pantries. The ITS analysis will compare 6 months of pre-intervention data to 6 months of during-intervention data to assess changes in food selection. The primary outcome is the healthfulness of items ordered by shoppers. In addition, we will qualitatively identify implementation factors that influence intervention success, including facilitators and barriers. We will also assess the feasibility and acceptability of longitudinally collecting diet quality, blood pressure, body composition, and weight data in 30 pantry shoppers comparing in-person and remote approaches to data collection over a 6- to 12-month period. Feasibility outcomes will include data completeness and acceptability of data collection procedures.