The Effect of an Application-based Health Intervention (FoodCoach) on Food Purchases in Switzerland

Summary

The FoodCoach study is a 9-week randomized controlled trial from the University of St.Gallen and the University Hospital of Bern, supported by the Swiss National Science Foundation #188402 and by Sanitas Management AG. Sanitas Management AG supports the recruiting of study participants without interfering with the study content.

FoodCoach aims to investigate the effectiveness of improving people's food shopping healthiness by providing automated food shopping recommendations. The results of the study could possibly help improve the health status of the Swiss population and beyond in a low-cost and automated manner.

The investigators collect participant grocery data via the loyalty card programs "Migros Cumulus" and "Coop Supercard" after obtaining participants' informed consent. From this data, the investigators generate automated recommendations that are based on the Nutri-Score framework and expertise of dieticians at the University Hospital of Bern. After sign-up, participants are randomized into a treatment and a control group. The treatment group receives automated recommendations via the FoodCoach Web Application, while the control group only receives a report about their food shopping by email after the intervention phase. Both groups need to finish the same onboarding survey where the investigators collect basic demographic information. After the intervention, the treatment group will receive a post-study survey containing two parts via email. Part 1 includes questions about the ease of use, interface and satisfaction and usefulness of the FoodCoach app. Part 2 includes questions about the participants' weight and height, the motivation to shop healthily and sustainably. The control group will receive a post-study survey which only contains part 2 as described before via email.

Conditions

• Adult

Interventions

BEHAVIORAL

FoodCoach

The FoodCoach app displays transparent analysis and recommendations regarding participant's food purchases recorded on their loyalty cards. It tries to help participants understand why and how they should/can shop more healthily, motivating them to change their unhealthy food purchase behavior.

Sponsors & Collaborators

• University hospital of Bern

  collaborator UNKNOWN

• Swiss National Science Foundation

  collaborator OTHER

• Sanitas Management AG

  collaborator UNKNOWN

• University of St.Gallen

  lead OTHER

Principal Investigators

• Jing Wu, MSc. · University of St.Gallen

Study Design

Allocation

RANDOMIZED

Purpose

PREVENTION

Masking

NONE

Model

PARALLEL

Eligibility

Min Age

18 Years

Sex

ALL

Healthy Volunteers

Yes

Timeline & Regulatory

Start

2022-11-09

Primary Completion

2023-05-26

Completion

2023-05-26

Countries

• Switzerland

Study Locations