ObjectiveWe built an app to help clients of food pantries. The app offers vegetable-based recipes, food tips and no-cost strategies for making mealtimes healthier and for bargain-conscious grocery shopping, among other themes. Users customize materials to meet their own preferences. The app, available in English and Spanish, has been tested in a randomized field trial.DesignA randomized controlled trial with repeated measures across 10 weeks.SettingClients of fifteen community food pantry distributions in Los Angeles County, USA.ParticipantsDistributions were randomized to control and experimental conditions, and 289 household cooks and one of their 9–14-year-old children were enrolled as participants. Experimental dyads were given a smartphone with our app and a phone use-plan, then trained to use the app. ‘Test vegetables’ were added to the foods that both control and experimental participants received at their pantries.ResultsAfter 3–4 weeks of additional ‘test vegetables’, cooks at experimental pantries had made 38 % more preparations with these items than control cooks (P = 0·03). Ten weeks following baseline, experimental pantries also scored greater gains in using a wider assortment of vegetables than control pantries (P = 0·003). Use of the app increased between mid-experiment and final measurement (P = 0·0001).ConclusionsThe app appears to encourage household cooks to try new preparation methods and widen their incorporation of vegetables into family diets. Further research is needed to identify specific app features that contributed most to outcomes and to test ways in which to disseminate the app widely.

This study tested whether message tailoring of recipes and food-use tips for low-income households is superior to providing a generic version of the material. The field experiment was conducted in the busy conditions found at community food pantries, and included 10 food distributions at each of six sites. We analyzed the consumption of fresh vegetables 6 days following distributions, and retention of print materials 6 weeks later. Self-determination and reactance theories guided the development of tailoring in an indigenous fashion, allowing each pantry client to choose recipes and food tips thought personally useful. This contrasted against paternalistic tailoring, common in health communication, where a motivational theory is used to regulate the health messages given to recipients. Results demonstrated benefits of tailoring over both generic and control conditions and uncovered the degree of tailoring that produced the largest effects. As suggested by construal level theory, the intervention addressed recipients' immediate and concrete decisions about healthy eating, instead of distant or abstract goals like prevention of illnesses. We documented per-client costs of tailored information. Results also suggested that benefits from social capital at sites offering a health outreach may exceed the impact of message tailoring on outcomes of interest.

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The rovibrational spectrum of the weakly bound complex CO2−CS2 was observed by exciting the asymmetric stretch of the CO2 moiety near 2349 cm-1. The complex was formed by the supersonic expansion of a 1:2 mixture of CO2 and CS2 in helium and had a nonplanar X-shaped structure. The intermolecular distance is 3.392 Å with a dihedral angle of 90°. The band center is located at 2346.5448 cm-1, with ground-state rotational constants of A‘‘ = 0.08590 cm-1, B‘‘ = 0.04634 cm-1, and C‘‘ = 0.03546 cm-1 and centrifugal distortion constants of D j ‘‘ = −1.37 × 10-7 cm-1, D k ‘‘ = 1.06 × 10-6 cm-1, and D jk ‘‘ = −1.01 × 10-6 cm-1. The excited-state constants are similar to the ground-state constants. A portion of the potential energy surface was modeled through the use of a Buckingham atom−atom potential and a quadrupole−quadrupole electrostatic potential. Calculations for the CO2−CS2 and (CO2)2 complexes produced structures in agreement with experimental results. Although the CO2−CS2 configuration is controlled by the quadrupole−quadrupole interactions, the atom−atom interactions predominantly determine the energy of the dimer. Because the magnitude of the CS2 quadrupole was increased in the electrostatic potential, the structure shifted from nonplanar X-shaped to a planar parallel configuration.

Objective: To demonstrate the use of four different qualitative methods in creating content, including text and graphic design for print interventions to support better nutrition in low-income households that rely on charitable pantries. Design: Four methods were used for measuring household cooks' responses to the content and design of recipes and food-use tips especially designed for lowincome households: (i) focus groups with pantry clients; (ii) questionnaires administered at sites where the Women, Infants and Children (WIC) programme beneficiaries gather, to survey cooks' judgements about the appeal of recipes; (iii) recruitment of WIC clients to prepare recipes at home, followed by phone interviews about the cooks' actual experiences preparing and serving dishes; and (iv) a new technique to gauge pantry clients' preferred ordering of print information, using bits of content backed by Velcro TM strips that participants applied to felt boards. Ten sets of illustrated recipes and food-use tips were prepared, each set focusing on a different fresh vegetable that is periodically available from charitable sources. Subjects: Low-income recipients of food from community pantries in the USA, and beneficiaries of the WIC programme. Results: Illustrative findings show how the four types of qualitative evaluations can inform decisions about content and about graphic design. Discoveries from this formative research illuminate challenges of supporting better nutrition among households that depend on charitable sources of food supply. Conclusions: These multi-method evaluation techniques can be adapted to the development of any print material, whether intended for widespread dissemination or for field research into nutrition behaviour.