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. 2019 Feb 28;8(1):66.
doi: 10.1186/s13643-019-0965-0.

Social marketing including financial incentive programs at worksite cafeterias for preventing obesity: a systematic review

Kimi Sawada  1   2 , Koji Wada  3 , Sadequa Shahrook  4 , Erika Ota  5 , Yukari Takemi  6 , Rintaro Mori  7
Affiliations

Social marketing including financial incentive programs at worksite cafeterias for preventing obesity: a systematic review

Kimi Sawada et al. Syst Rev. .

Abstract

Background: As with food-taxation strategies, such interventions as discounted healthy menus, point-of-purchase advertisements, and sugar-free beverages for employees at worksites could help prevent obesity. This study assessed the effectiveness of food environment interventions incorporating financial incentive or social marketing strategies at workplace cafeterias, vending machines, and kiosks toward preventing obesity and improving dietary habits.

Methods: We conducted searches on CENTRAL, MEDLINE, EMBASE, CINAHL, and PsycINFO databases. The study designs included were randomized control trials (RCTs) and cluster RCTs. We evaluated the effectiveness of financial incentive or social marketing strategies interventions (such as discounts) on health outcomes or food intake behavior. Two reviewers independently screened the studies for inclusion. We assessed the risk of bias using the Cochrane Collaboration's tool. This protocol was published in 2014.

Results: We included three trials, with a combined total of 3013 participants. There were limited available data from RCTs on changes in body weight. No eligible social marketing studies were retrieved. In some cases, a meta-analysis could not be conducted owing to differences in the analytic methods for the outcomes.

Conclusions: Lack of evidence made it difficult to draw any conclusions. In future surveys, it will be necessary to conduct interventions focusing only on financial incentive intervention versus no intervention in order to determine whether the incentive strategy has a clear impact.

Systematic review registration: PROSPERO CRD4201401056.

Keywords: Food environmental interventions; Incentive-based; Obesity; Systematic review; Workplace.

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Conflict of interest statement

Authors’ information

The authors are involved in the following research fields: nutrition education, nutrition public health, health promotion, and food environmental intervention.

Ethics approval and consent to participate

Not applicable

Consent for publication

Not applicable

Competing interests

The authors declare that they have no competing interests.

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Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Flowchart of study selection
Fig. 2
Fig. 2
“Risk of bias” graph Review authors’ judgments about each risk of bias item presented as percentages across all included studies
Fig. 3
Fig. 3
“Risk of bias” summary. Review authors’ judgments about each risk of bias item for each included study
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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