GAINESVILLE, Fla. — University of Florida researchers will study how a chronic disease diagnosis affects what families buy at the grocery store.
A UF research team has received a $525,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture to study how diagnoses such as diabetes or heart disease affect household food purchases.
The project, called “Understanding Dietary Change and Food Purchase for Better Policy Design,” will look at how families change their food-buying habits after a diagnosis and what factors affect those choices.
Researchers said food prices, purchasing habits and other economic pressures can make dietary changes easier for some families and harder for others.
Food choices after a diagnosis
Di Fang, an associate professor in the UF/IFAS Food and Resource Economics Department, said people often receive dietary advice after a chronic disease diagnosis, but following that advice can be difficult.
“A chronic disease diagnosis often comes with advice about what people should eat but knowing what to eat and being able to afford and sustain those changes are two different things,” Fang said.
Fang said the research will help show what families actually do after a diagnosis, how long those changes last and how food prices affect their ability to make healthier choices.
The project will measure the nutritional quality of household food purchases and examine whether changes after a diagnosis are temporary or continue over time.
Researchers will use national data
Researchers will analyze national data sets from the USDA Consumer Food Data System.
The data includes information from Circana’s Consumer Network, which tracks grocery purchases and other consumer buying behaviors over time.
UF said the data sets track grocery purchases among more than 120,000 U.S. households and combine that information with health and prescription medication data from participating households.
Researchers will compare food purchases before and after a chronic disease diagnosis to determine whether the nutritional quality of those purchases changes.
Price plays a role
The project will also examine how food prices influence purchasing decisions.
Frank Asche, a distinguished professor in natural resource economics at UF’s School of Forest, Fisheries, and Geomatics Sciences, said price is important for many shoppers.
“Research shows that for most consumers, price is of key importance when choosing what to buy, and this is more so for families with lower incomes as well as larger families where their income has to stretch further,” Asche said.
Asche said dietary advice can be more effective when it accounts for cost.
Fang and Asche said they hope the findings will help policymakers and program administrators develop better approaches to supporting healthy eating.
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