Grantee Research Project Results
Preventing Consumer Food Waste: Developing and Evaluating Household-Level Interventions
EPA Grant Number: R840535Title: Preventing Consumer Food Waste: Developing and Evaluating Household-Level Interventions
Investigators: Taillie, Lindsey Smith , Ammerman, Alice , Caballero, Smit Vasquez
Current Investigators: Taillie, Lindsey Smith , Ammerman, Alice
Institution: University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill , Research Triangle Institute
Current Institution: University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
EPA Project Officer: Hoysala, Sneha
Project Period: April 1, 2023 through May 9, 2025
Project Amount: $732,045
RFA: Research to Reduce Consumer Food Waste in the United States Request for Applications (RFA) (2022) RFA Text | Recipients Lists
Research Category: Food Waste , Endocrine Disruptors
Description:
This project aims to evaluate a set of household food waste prevention interventions researchers have developed with local health, food, and environmental organizations in North Carolina.
Objective:
The goal is to design and evaluate a household food waste prevention intervention, with a focus on low-income households, aligning with EPA's goal of halving US food waste. The hypothesis is that relative to the control group, participants in the intervention group will reduce household food waste and improve food waste prevention behaviors, psychosocial drivers of food waste, and food security. To do this, researchers will leverage the skills of their interdisciplinary team comprised of nutritionists, environmental scientists, and economists, and use novel approaches to intervention design, including tailored approaches developed through engagement with our community advisory committee (CAC). Researchers will use the RE-AIM implementation framework (Reach, Effectiveness, Adoption, Implementation and Maintenance) to ensure that our intervention is well designed for scale-up, dissemination, and maintenance. By focusing on low-income populations, the intervention has the potential to promote equity through the reduction of food insecurity in addition to achieving economic and environmental benefits.
Approach:
Researchers will assemble a CAC comprised of local, state, and federal organizations representing food, health, and environmental expertise to provide input on intervention design and dissemination. They will also use a human-centered design model to center the needs of low-income households when designing the intervention, an approach that UNC researchers have used previously to ensure equity. Across four workshops of 8-10 adults, the research team will develop a set of interventions that can be tailored based on root causes of food waste for a particular household. To evaluate the impact of the intervention, researchers will enroll 200 households (100 intervention, 100 control) in an 8-week randomized trial. Households will be randomized to receive the intervention (comprised of a self-assessment and a tailored intervention) or the control (a flyer with links to websites with food waste prevention tips). Scientists will measure the impact on avoidable food waste (grams/household/week), food waste prevention behaviors, psychosocial drivers of food waste, and food security. Researchers will also simulate the impact of the interventions on environmental outcomes (e.g., greenhouse gas emissions, blue water withdrawal, land use, and energy use) and cost-effectiveness if implemented nationally. Additionally, the research team will work with the CAC to widely disseminate our intervention toolkit to community organizations, community members, researchers, advocacy groups, and other stakeholders.
Expected Results:
Expected results include an intervention toolkit for households, estimates of environmental impact and cost-effectiveness, dissemination materials, and at least three scientific publications. Outcomes will include widespread dissemination of intervention materials resulting in extensive reduction in household food waste nationally.
Supplemental Keywords:
community-based, educational, cost-benefit analysis, public health, North CarolinaProgress and Final Reports:
The perspectives, information and conclusions conveyed in research project abstracts, progress reports, final reports, journal abstracts and journal publications convey the viewpoints of the principal investigator and may not represent the views and policies of ORD and EPA. Conclusions drawn by the principal investigators have not been reviewed by the Agency.