Effectiveness of recruitment to a smartphone-delivered nutrition intervention in New Zealand: analysis of a randomised controlled trial.

Objectives: Delivery of interventions via smartphone is a relatively new initiative in public health, and limited evidence exists regarding optimal strategies for recruitment. We describe the effectiveness of approaches used to recruit participants to a smartphone-enabled nutrition intervention trial.

Methods: Internet and social media advertising, mainstream media advertising and research team networks were used to recruit New Zealand adults to a fully automated smartphone-delivered nutrition labelling trial (no face-to-face visits were required).

Effects of interpretive nutrition labels on consumer food purchases: the Starlight randomized controlled trial.

Nutrition labeling is a prominent policy to promote healthy eating. We aimed to evaluate the effects of 2 interpretive nutrition labels compared with a noninterpretive label on consumer food purchases. In this parallel-group randomized controlled trial, we enrolled household shoppers across New Zealand who owned smartphones and were aged ≥18 y.

Study protocol: combining experimental methods, econometrics and simulation modelling to determine price elasticities for studying food taxes and subsidies (The Price ExaM Study).

Background: There is a need for accurate and precise food price elasticities (PE, change in consumer demand in response to change in price) to better inform policy on health-related food taxes and subsidies.

Methods/design: The Price Experiment and Modelling (Price ExaM) study aims to: I) derive accurate and precise food PE values; II) quantify the impact of price changes on quantity and quality of discrete food group purchases and; III) model the potential health and disease impacts of a range of food taxes and subsidies. To achieve this, we will use a novel method that includes a randomised Virtual Supermarket experiment and econometric methods.

"Smart" RCTs: Development of a Smartphone App for Fully Automated Nutrition-Labeling Intervention Trials.

Background: There is substantial interest in the effects of nutrition labels on consumer food-purchasing behavior. However, conducting randomized controlled trials on the impact of nutrition labels in the real world presents a significant challenge.

Objective: The Food Label Trial (FLT) smartphone app was developed to enable conducting fully automated trials, delivering intervention remotely, and collecting individual-level data on food purchases for two nutrition-labeling randomized controlled trials (RCTs) in New Zealand and Australia.

Effects of interpretive front-of-pack nutrition labels on food purchases: protocol for the Starlight randomised controlled trial.

Background: Interpretive front-of-pack nutrition labels are better understood than non-interpretive labels. However, robust evidence on the effects of such labels on consumer food purchases in the real-world is lacking. Our aim is to assess the effects of two interpretive front-of-pack nutrition labels, compared with a non-interpretive label, on the healthiness of consumer food purchases.

Development of an Evidence-Based mHealth Weight Management Program Using a Formative Research Process.

Background: There is a critical need for weight management programs that are effective, cost efficient, accessible, and acceptable to adults from diverse ethnic and socioeconomic backgrounds. mHealth (delivered via mobile phone and Internet) weight management programs have potential to address this need. To maximize the success and cost-effectiveness of such an mHealth approach it is vital to develop program content based on effective behavior change techniques, proven weight management programs, and closely aligned with participants' needs.

Feasibility, acceptability and potential effectiveness of a mobile health (mHealth) weight management programme for New Zealand adults.

Background: Mobile health (mHealth) behaviour change programmes use mobile phones and the internet to deliver health information and behaviour change support to participants. Such programmes offer a potentially cost-effective way to reach many individuals who do not currently access weight loss services. We developed a mHealth weight management programme using proven face-to-face behaviour change techniques and incorporating target population input.

Effects of a free school breakfast programme on children's attendance, academic achievement and short-term hunger: results from a stepped-wedge, cluster randomised controlled trial.

Background: Free school breakfast programmes (SBPs) exist in a number of high-income countries, but their effects on educational outcomes have rarely been evaluated in randomised controlled trials.

Methods: A 1-year stepped-wedge, cluster randomised controlled trial was undertaken in 14 New Zealand schools in low socioeconomic resource areas. Participants were 424 children, mean age 9±2 years, 53% female.

Effects of a free school breakfast programme on school attendance, achievement, psychosocial function, and nutrition: a stepped wedge cluster randomised trial.

Background: Approximately 55,000 children in New Zealand do not eat breakfast on any given day. Regular breakfast skipping has been associated with poor diets, higher body mass index, and adverse effects on children's behaviour and academic performance. Research suggests that regular breakfast consumption can improve academic performance, nutrition and behaviour.