Designing Impactful Warnings for Sugary Drinks

Health Behavior Clinical Trial

Official title: Designing Impactful Warnings for Sugary Drinks

Status Completed

Clinical Trial Summary

The goal of this online RCT study is to examine how sugar-sweetened beverage (SSB) health warnings influence US adults' perceptions and reactions. The investigators have the following predictions:

1. SSB warnings will be perceived as more effective than the control (message topic)

2. Icon and graphic warnings will be perceived as more effective than text-only warnings (message type)

The investigators will also examine the interaction of warning topic and warning type, but have no specific hypothesis about this interaction.

Finally, the investigators will test the following predictions about the secondary outcomes:

SSB warnings (vs. control), as well as icon and graphic warnings (vs text.warnings), will lead to lower perceived product healthfulness, lower purchase intentions, and higher cognitive elaboration.

Clinical Trial Description

Childhood obesity is a major public health problem in the US among racial and ethnic minorities, including among the US's growing Latino population. One promising but understudied policy for addressing childhood obesity is requiring warnings on the front of sugar-sweetened beverage containers. However, the topic and design of warnings that are most effective in communicating the harms of sugar-sweetened beverages remains unknown. This study assess which warning topics and which warning designs lead to the greatest perceived message effectiveness among US Latino and non-Latino parents of children ages 2-12. The investigators focus on parents as they are the primary decision-makers and purchasers of food products for children and exert strong influence over their children's dietary intake and food attitudes.

Setting: The trial will take place online on a survey developed using Qualtrics.

Recruitment: Participants will be recruited online by CloudResearch PrimePanels, a survey research platform with access to over 20 million participants. As such, participants will have to be PrimePanels members in order to participate.

Informed Consent: After determining eligibility, eligible participants will be directed to a page on Qualtrics with the consent form. Participants acknowledge their consent in the study by clicking the "next page" arrow and proceeding to the study.

Randomization: After consenting, the participant is randomly assigned to to view one of the 5 warning topics. "WARNING: High in added sugar" (added sugar), "WARNING: Excess consumption of drinks with added sugar contributes to weight gain" (weight gain), "WARNING: Excess consumption of drinks with added sugar contributes to type 2 diabetes" (Type 2 diabetes), "WARNING: Excess consumption of drinks with added sugar contributes to heart damage" (heart damage), and "Please refrain from littering" (control). Within each of the four experimental arms, participants see the message displayed on four different types of warning designs: a text warning on a square background, a text warning on a octagon background, and icon warning, and a graphic warning. Within the control arm, participants see the message displayed on three different types of warning designs: a text warning on a square background, an icon warning, and a graphic warning. Participants randomly see the different warning designs in a random order.

Survey: The participants complete a survey answering behavioral perceptions and intentions questions about the different warning labels. ;

Related Conditions & MeSH terms

• Health Behavior

• NCT number: NCT04382599
• Study type: Interventional
• Source: University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
• Status: Completed
• Phase: N/A
• Start date: October 7, 2019
• Completion date: November 4, 2019