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Completed

NCT Number: NCT05672186

Mobile Food Market Cluster Randomized Trial

Mobile food markets have been proposed as a strategy for mitigating health disparities related to poor nutrition and diet/weight-related health conditions because they bring low-cost, healthy food directly to underserved populations. Full-service mobile markets may improve multiple aspects of the diet by providing foods to meet all dietary needs through a convenient one-stop shop. The full-service mobile market to be tested (Twin Cities Mobile Market) sells nutritious and staple foods from a bus that regularly visits low-income neighborhoods. Foods are sold at prices ~10% below those of grocery stores. SNAP/EBT is accepted, and a state-funded fruit/vegetable incentive program (Market Bucks) is available to shoppers. Working in partnership with our community team members, we will enroll 12 total sites and recruit 22 participants per site (N=264). We will collect baseline data and randomize sites to either receive the full-service mobile market intervention or serve as the waitlist control. We will then implement the full-service mobile market at intervention sites, follow participants for 6 months, and collect follow-up data. After follow-up data collection, waitlist control sites will receive the full-service mobile market intervention. Diet quality will be assessed through dietary recall interviews, food insecurity will be assessed by survey, and fruit and vegetable purchases will be measured by collecting one month of food purchase tracking forms at baseline and follow-up data collection. Analyses will determine whether the full-service mobile market changes diet quality, food security, and food purchasing outcomes.

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Key information

Conditions

Healthy Diet Nutrition, Healthy

Age range

18 year and older

Sex eligibility

All sexes

Study type

Interventional

Phase

Not applicable

Primary location

University of Minnesota

Minneapolis, Minnesota, 55455, United States

Who can participate

Healthy volunteers accepted: Yes

Only the study team can determine whether someone qualifies for participation.

Inclusion criteria

Community sites (e.g., public housing hi-rise, low-income senior living residence) must meet the following criteria:

  • locale for low-income populations that experience difficulty in accessing healthy, affordable foods (e.g., public housing residences; low-income senior housing) or a community center in a low-income, low-food access (0.5 mile) census tract;
  • willingness to be randomized to the intervention or waitlist control;
  • located over 0.5 miles apart from other trial sites;
  • willingness to allow for recruitment and data collection to occur in onsite community rooms

Participants must meet the following criteria:

  • being aged 18 years or older;
  • identifying as the primary food shopper in their household;
  • being able to speak English or ASL;
  • living within a half mile of the community site location; and
  • reporting to be likely or somewhat likely to shop at the market in response to: "how likely would you be to shop regularly at the Twin Cities Mobile Market if it came to your neighborhood each week (response options: likely to unlikely).
  • willing and able to participate in all study data collection activities

Exclusion criteria

  • planning to move in the next 12 months
  • currently shopping at the mobile market
  • not having a phone number or mailing address
  • presence of a condition or abnormality that would prohibit participation in the study or the quality of the data

Treatment and study plan

Full-service market intervention

Behavioral

Full-service mobile market implementation: the market will visit intervention sites weekly. The market will carry items from all food groups including fresh, frozen and canned fruits and vegetables, whole grains, dairy/ dairy substitutes, proteins (e.g., frozen meat/fish, beans, eggs), and dry goods (e.g., cooking oil, spices). Prices on the market are affordable, approximately 10% lower than grocery stores.

No intervention

Other

No intervention

Primary outcomes

  1. Diet quality

    Time frame: At baseline and 6 month follow-up

    Trained research staff certified in collecting dietary recalls using Nutrition Data System for Research software will collect three 24-hour dietary recall interviews (2 weekdays, 1 weekend day) from each participant at each measurement period. Dietary recall data will be used to calculate the Health Eating Index Total Score.

Secondary outcomes

  1. Food insecurity

    Time frame: At baseline and 6 month follow-up

    Food security in the past 6 months will be measured with the 18-item Household food security screening module of the USDA. From this measure, household food security status (food insecure or food secure) will be calculated per USDA guidelines for each time Food insecurity (yes, no) will be measured with the 18-item food security screening module of the USDA.

  2. Level of food insecurity

    Time frame: At baseline and 6 month follow-up

    Food insecurity in the past 6 months will be measured with the 18-item food security screening module of the USDA. From this measure, household food security level (very low, low, marginal, and high food security) will be calculated per USDA guidelines for each time point, which will allow for calculation of level of food security prevalence at each time point.

  3. Average weekly servings of fruits and vegetables procured

    Time frame: At baseline and 6 month follow-up

    Participants will use forms to record the fruits and vegetables they procured for their household and mail the forms to the researchers in prepaid addressed envelopes. Form data will be entered into Nutrition Data System for Research software to measure average weekly servings of fruits and vegetables procured.

  4. Fruit and vegetables (servings/day)

    Time frame: At baseline and 6 month follow-up

    Trained research staff certified in collecting dietary recalls using Nutrition Data System for Research software will collect three 24-hour dietary recall interviews (2 weekdays, 1 weekend day) from each participant at each measurement period. Dietary recall data will be used to calculate the fruit and vegetables (servings/day) at baseline and follow-up.

  5. Daily intake of energy (kcal/day)

    Time frame: At baseline and 6 month follow-up

    Trained research staff certified in collecting dietary recalls using Nutrition Data System for Research software will collect three 24-hour dietary recall interviews (2 weekdays, 1 weekend day) from each participant at each measurement period. Dietary recall data will be used to calculate the daily intake of energy (kcal/day).

  6. Percent calories from added sugar

    Time frame: At baseline and 6 month follow-up

    Trained research staff certified in collecting dietary recalls using Nutrition Data System for Research software will collect three 24-hour dietary recall interviews (2 weekdays, 1 weekend day) from each participant at each measurement period. Dietary recall data will be used to calculate percent calories from added sugar.

  7. Sodium (mg/day)

    Time frame: At baseline and 6 month follow-up

    Trained research staff certified in collecting dietary recalls using Nutrition Data System for Research software will collect three 24-hour dietary recall interviews (2 weekdays, 1 weekend day) from each participant at each measurement period. Dietary recall data will be used to calculate sodium (mg/day) intake.

Sponsors and collaborators

Lead sponsor

University of Minnesota

Other

Registry information

Official study title

Evaluating Diet, Food Insecurity, and Food Purchasing Outcomes of a Full-Service Mobile Food Market With a Cluster Randomized Trial

Important dates

Study start
2023
Primary completion
2025
Study completion
2025
First posted
Jan 5, 2023
Registry last updated
Oct 31, 2025

OpenTrials presents study information sourced from ClinicalTrials.gov. The official registry record should be consulted for the latest information.

View the official ClinicalTrials.gov record (opens in a new tab)

This listing is for discovery and informational purposes only. It is not medical advice, does not guarantee that a study is recruiting, and does not determine eligibility. Contact the study team and a qualified healthcare professional when considering participation.

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