Abstract
Purpose: In November 2015, Greater Pittsburgh Community Food Bank implemented a pilot phase of the Green Grocer mobile market, a program aimed at improving access to locally sourced fresh foods in low-resource neighborhoods. We conducted an evaluation of this pilot phase.Methods: We conducted baseline surveys of residents in six neighborhoods that received Green Grocer in the pilot phase to understand the food environment, including perceptions of fresh food availability, and another survey of Green Grocer consumers to evaluate their experiences and satisfaction. We measured respondent intake of fruit and vegetable in the terms of days per week and servings per day. We used Poisson regression with cluster-robust standard errors to model the average change in produce consumption pre–post intervention.Results: Residents of select communities observed meaningful improvements in intake. After covariate adjustment, Homewood residents observed an average 13% increase in vegetable intake (days/week) rates post-Green Grocer (p=0.04). Clairton residents also showed marked increases, with an average 20% increase in vegetable intake (servings/day) (p=0.049). After 6 months, declines in produce purchase from discount stores and supercenters were observed alongside increases in procurement from Green Grocer, farmer's markets, gardens, and other sources.Conclusion: Our preliminary work provides support that this mobile market serving under-resourced areas was valued by consumers and showed increases in vegetable consumption in several neighborhoods. When scaled-up, this program had the potential to reduce geographically-based food and health disparities.
Highlights
There are significant disparities in the prevalence of overweight and obesity in the United States among communities of color and low-income communities compared with their White counterparts
We identified target areas for the Green Grocer mobile market using five key constructs: poverty/income rates, Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) usage, obesity rates, grocery/supermarket access, and mass transit access
In alignment with our evaluation aims, our neighborhood variable consisted of the following communities for which we had adequate followup: ‘‘California-Kirkbride,’’ ‘‘Clairton,’’ ‘‘Homewood,’’ ‘‘Mt. Oliver,’’ and ‘‘Wilmerding.’’ Neighborhood characteristics are described elsewhere
Summary
There are significant disparities in the prevalence of overweight and obesity in the United States among communities of color and low-income communities compared with their White counterparts. The rates of obesity in 2011–2014 were 48.1% among Non-Hispanic Blacks and 42.5% among Hispanics compared with 34.5% among non-Hispanic Whites.[1,2,3] disparities in rates of obesity are seen among those with lower incomes and less education, among women.[4] Many potential solutions to curb the obesity epidemic have been promoted, but most have focused on individual-level behavior change strategies, which have had limited impact on improving population-based rates. Departments of 1Behavioral and Community Health Sciences, and 2Epidemiology, University of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Public Health, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
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