Proyecto MercadoFRESCO: A Multi-level, Community-Engaged Corner Store Intervention in East Los Angeles and Boyle Heights

Abstract

Urban food swamps are typically situated in low-income, minority communities and contribute to overweight and obesity. Changing the food landscape in low income and underserved communities is one strategy to combat the negative health consequences associated with the lack of access to healthy food resources and an abundance of unhealthy food venues. In this paper, we describe Proyecto MercadoFRESCO (Fresh Market Project), a corner store intervention project in East Los Angeles and Boyle Heights in California that used a multi-level approach with a broad range of community, business, and academic partners. These are two neighboring, predominantly Latino communities that have high rates of overweight and obesity. Located in these two communities are approximately 150 corner stores. The project used a community-engaged approach to select, recruit, and convert four corner stores, so that they could become healthy community assets in order to improve residents’ access to and awareness of fresh and affordable fruits and vegetables in their immediate neighborhoods. We describe the study framework for the multi-level intervention, which includes having multiple stakeholders, expertise in corner store operations, community and youth engagement strategies, and social marketing campaigns. We also describe the evaluation and survey methodology to determine community and patron impact of the intervention. This paper provides a framework useful to a variety of public health stakeholders for implementing a community-engaged corner store conversion, particularly in an urban food swamp.

Association between store food environment and customer purchases in small grocery stores, gas-marts, pharmacies and dollar stores

“…Beyond availability and marketing, using demand-driven and community engagement strategies have been recognized as key to successful interventions [47, 72]. More work is needed to create reasonable policies and programmatic approaches that reach stores that have not historically participated in intensive interventions.…”

Comparing Lay Community and Academic Survey Center Interviewers in Conducting Household Interviews in Latino Communities

“…The methodology of the study has been described in detail elsewhere. 8 In brief, to evaluate the intervention we conducted a community household survey in neighborhoods surrounding corner stores in East Los Angeles and Boyle Heights. There were a total of eight sample sites situated around these corner stores, grouped into four dyads, each with a treatment and control arm.…”

“…More information on these activities is described in Ortega and collegues. 8 Although VELA was a valuable partner, the study was conceived of and designed by academic researchers, and thus our approach was a community-engaged one rather than a community-based participatory research one.…”

Retail Environments as a Venue for Obesity Prevention

“…Several of these studies reported results from monitoring the process implemented by the corner stores and consumer perceptions of change in the store environment [72, 88]. Strategies included increased stocking of healthy foods such as fresh fruits and vegetables, beans, lean meats, whole wheat bread and low-fat dairy, increased promotion of healthy items, decreased promotion or moving of less healthy items such as sugar-sweetened beverages, price discounts for healthy foods, grants for refrigeration units, training of managers/owners on how to stock, market healthy foods, social media, community, flyers, and signage [74, 84, 85, 87–89]. Four studies only reported preliminary results and did not include information on individual/consumer behavior [72, 84, 85, 89].…”