Intervening in tiendas to promote fruit and vegetable intake: Store-level results of the Vida Sana study

Tiendas are small food stores that serve Latinos in the US by providing traditional food products and services. This study reports on changes observed at the store-level following the implementation of an innovative intervention to promote sales of fruits and vegetables. Four stores from among 42 were invited and agreed to participate. Stores were matched on important characteristics and then randomized to an intervention or a delayed treatment control condition. The intervention involved employee and manager training, structural changes in the store, and a food marketing campaign. Previously, we reported on pre-post changes in customer fruit and vegetable consumption; participants recruited from the intervention condition stores increased their fruit and vegetable intake by one daily serving compared with no change in control store participants. In this presentation, Dr. Ayala will highlight improvements observed at the store-level as measured by audits conducted by a blinded observer. Specifically, the intervention stores significantly increased the total number of available fresh vegetables and canned vegetables compared with the control stores: fresh = 26% increase in intervention stores versus 9% in the control stores (p<.01); canned = 30% increase in intervention stores versus 9% decrease in control stores (p<.01). No significant group-by-time interactions were observed in the total number of available fruits and canned fruits. In addition, fresh fruits were observed to decrease in all stores over time. This study provides evidence for changing the environment which may have an impact on individual-level intake.