The overall goal of this project is to implement a process evaluation of the 5 A Day for Better Health Program. Key elements of this process evaluation are to: l) document overall development and implementation of the community, industry, and media components between 1991 and 1996, and 2) develop substudies which correlate program outcomes with measures of program implementation. To achieve these two objectives, the principal investigator plans to do the following: a) examine secondary sources (state reports, PBH reports, Try Foods sales, and clipping service data for ads and newspaper references) to document program growth, b) conduct in-depth case studies in four states to examine characteristics of states with intense versus less intense interventions, c) analyze in 1995 and track and analyze in 1996 5 A Day week activities in specific localities within select states, d) document retail activity within specific localities between October 1995 and May 1996, and e) develop an index that measures intensity of intervention. Correlate state and locality outcomes with this index. Primary results/products expected include a primarily quantitative characterization of the three program components across all states, a predominantly qualitative contextual description of four select state programs with an analytic focus on the identification of factors affecting program effectiveness and success, analyses of intense (5 A Day week activities) and less intense (retail tracking from October 1995 through May 1996) intervention, and a tested index of intervention to measure overall implementation.
