ARS | Publication request: Understanding the behavioral linkages needed for designing effective interventions to increase fruit and vegetable intake in diverse populations

Submitted to: Journal Of The American Dietetic Association
Publication Type: Review Article
Publication Acceptance Date: June 29, 2011
Publication Date: October 1, 2011
Citation: Baranowski, T. 2011. Understanding the behavioral linkages needed for designing effective interventions to increase fruit and vegetable intake in diverse populations. Journal Of The American Dietetic Association. 111(10):1472-1475.

Technical Abstract: The design of interventions to increase fruit and vegetable consumption in a population (e.g. all men, all elementary school students) requires an underlying model that organizes the relevant literatures and provides an audience. The mediating-moderating variable model is a statistical analysis technique that can be imposed on a literature to contribute to intervention design. This paper describes the mediating-moderating variable model and applies it to seven articles on fruit and vegetable consumption in this published issue of the Journal of the American Dietetic Association. The approach to organizing the relevant but diverse published literatures emphasizes the importance of identifying causal and strong relationships from intervention to influence (moderator) to behavior to health outcomes, while taking into account the influences of possible moderating variables.