Best practices for using natural experiments to evaluate retail food and beverage policies and interventions.

ABSTRACT: Policy and programmatic change in the food retail setting, including excise taxes on beverages with added-caloric sweeteners, new supermarkets in food deserts, and voluntary corporate pledges, often require the use of natural experimental evaluation for impact evaluation when randomized controlled trials are not possible. Although natural experimental studies in the food retail setting provide important opportunities to test how nonrandomized interventions affect behavioral and health outcomes, researchers face several key challenges to maintaining strong internal and external validity when conducting these studies. Broadly, these challenges include 1) study design and analysis; 2) selection of participants, selection of measures, and obtainment of data; and 3) real-world considerations. T

SUBMITTER: Taillie LS 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6280926 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature