Farmers Market Food Navigator Program: Key Stakeholder Perceptions and Program Outcomes

Abstract

The Farmers Market (FM) Food Navigator program was designed over 3 years and follows a social ecological framework to increase vulnerable populations’ access to local foods and build confidence to shop in a FM supporting local food systems while promoting fruit and vegetable consumption. Food Navigators followed a program Playbook, though unlike many similar programs, the program did not offer incentives to subsidize FM purchases. To inform program design and understand outcomes, data were collected from Food Navigators, shoppers, FM managers, and FM vendors. Food Navigators supported five to seven FMs each season (May through October), spending 590 days in FMs over three seasons. Due to their interaction with Food Navigators, shoppers in Season 3 ( n = 689) indicated that they would: shop more at the FM (80%); eat more vegetables (52%); and purchase more vegetables (50%). Of shoppers who interacted with Food Navigators more than once ( n = 55), 26% reported a higher frequency of vegetable consumption on their last survey compared with their first. In Season 3, at least half of FM managers ( n = 4, 50%) and vendors ( n = 68, 57%) agreed that food navigators helped increase overall market fruit and vegetables sales. Findings indicated the program did influence multiple levels of a social ecological framework as intended. FM nutrition programs can have success at increasing market sales and improving health-related behaviors without offering incentives. As a result, programs could operate with smaller budgets and be more likely to have increased shopper fruit and vegetable consumption sustainably beyond the direct subsidy of purchases.

Moving Food Assistance into the Digital Age: A Scoping Review

“…Both of these frameworks include the enduser (e.g., food pantry clients) within the intervention development process, ensuring that the tools meet the needs of intended users [88]. In addition, stakeholder management and analysis frameworks provide valuable protocols for improving acceptability and usability [3,4]. Despite these frameworks, only 12 studies were performed in partnership with or led by food assistance programs.…”

“…Mobile Health (mHealth) and digital application technology have revolutionized public health [1][2][3][4]. Digital interventions have been shown to successfully improve health behaviors, ranging from smoking cessation to diet [5,6] and health outcomes, including weight loss [7][8][9][10].…”