The aim of stream 4 is to estimate the impact of healthy food retail interventions on population diet, equity, health, and business.
Stream 4 works collaboratively across all streams to undertake economic evaluations of healthy retail strategies. Currently we are evaluating five retail based interventions.
Objective 1
Develop a business impact model that accommodates sales and profitability for healthy food retail in different settings.
Objective 2
Estimate how changes in food sales from healthy food retail interventions will impact population diets.
Objective 3
Model the long-term health outcomes, equity impact, and cost-effectiveness of healthy food retail interventions for the Australian population.
Objective 4
Develop a prototype for an interactive tool which enables retailers to select options for transforming the health impact of their retail environment.
Objective 1: Develop a business impact model that accommodates sales and profitability for healthy food retail in different settings.
Food retailers are businesses and therefore any voluntary changes to the retail environment to increase healthiness also need to meet commercial needs. The main project to deliver this objective will be undertaken as a PhD research program aimed to establish what business outcomes are important to retailers and how they can be included in cost-effectiveness analyses. Key studies will include:
- An assessment of the evidence base of how customers value healthier retail environments
- Workshops with retailers to determine the business outcomes relevant to various types of retailers
- Conduct discrete choice experiments to value retailer outcomes
- Conduct economic evaluations incorporating these business outcomes into the cost-effectiveness analyses.
Economic evaluations often take the health sector perspective where the focus is on estimating the costs of intervention implementation, cost savings to the healthcare sector and long term population health outcomes. Stream 4 will assess the impact of retail interventions on population diet and health but also go beyond these traditional outcomes and investigate the impact of retail interventions on business outcomes in order to provide retailers with the economic evidence they need to move towards healthier food retail.
Objective 2: Estimate how changes in food sales from healthy food retail interventions will impact population diets.
Stream 4 aims to bridge the current evidence gaps related to the estimation of long term health impacts of retail interventions. This relates to how sales data translates to overall food consumption and the population impact of retail interventions in specific settings where there is limited data on compensatory purchasing behaviour. Current activities:
Objective 3: Model the long-term health outcomes, equity impact, and cost-effectiveness of healthy food retail interventions for the Australian population.
Stream 4 will continue to work closely with stream 2 and 3 to evaluate the cost-effectiveness of novel retail interventions. We are currently evaluating the cost-effectiveness of the following interventions:
- Eat Well @ IGA study
- ‘Supporting food companies to implement policies for improving population nutrition’
- Water in Sport
- NSW Health Facilities Healthy Food and Drink framework
Objective 4: Develop a prototype for an interactive tool which enables retailers to select options for transforming the health impact of their retail environment.
This objective will be progressed in the later years of RE-FRESH.
resources for this stream
Stream 1
Identifying and implementing the most feasible strategy to improve the health of food retail
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