SUPERSTARS: Supermarket Support for a Primary Care Healthy Food Prescription

Summary

Few Americans meet dietary recommendations. Poor diet is a major contributor to increasing prevalence of diabetes and obesity, which are negatively impacting long term health, quality of life, and healthcare costs, particularly among low-income, racial and ethnic minority, and rural populations in the U.S. To help address these inequities, produce prescription programs are being implemented in many health care settings. However, key research gaps and programmatic barriers remain. In the proposed project, the investigators will use research, education, and extension to improve nutrition security in rural underserved communities and deliver science-based knowledge to consumers, allowing them to make informed, practical decisions that can improve health equity. The project goal is to implement and rigorously evaluate an innovative primary-care based healthy food prescription that is paired with incentives to use the local supermarket's established healthy food shelf-tag labeling system to increase healthy food choices at the point of purchase. The investigators will: 1) assess the program's impact on participants' food and nutrition security, 2) assess the program's impact on participants' supermarket purchases and diet, and explore the program's impact on health, and 3) use the research findings to engage health systems, nutrition educators, and communities in evidence-based strategies to improve nutrition security. The program has the potential to sustainably encourage healthy food choices where decisions matter-in the supermarket, using existing supermarket resources. Improving purchasing patterns by increasing sales of less processed and whole foods, could also positively affect industry offerings and sustainability of the agricultural system as a whole.

Conditions

• Healthy Food Choice
• Incentives
• Low Income Population
• Rural Health

Interventions

BEHAVIORAL

Primary care healthy food prescription plus incentive

Primary care healthy food prescription with $40 monthly incentive for four months to purchase 2 and 3 starred (via Guiding Stars) groceries at the supermarket

Sponsors & Collaborators

• MaineHealth

  collaborator OTHER

• Harvard Medical School / Harvard Pilgrim Health Care Institute

  collaborator UNKNOWN

• Massachusetts General Hospital

  collaborator OTHER

• Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH)

  collaborator OTHER

• University of New England

  lead OTHER

Principal Investigators

• Michele Polacsek, PhD, MHS · University of New England

Study Design

Allocation

RANDOMIZED

Purpose

PREVENTION

Masking

DOUBLE

Model

PARALLEL

Eligibility

Min Age

21 Years

Max Age

90 Years

Sex

ALL

Healthy Volunteers

Yes

Timeline & Regulatory

Start

2025-07-01

Primary Completion

2026-08-30

Completion

2026-11-30