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Online Grocery Delivery Services: An Opportunity to Address Food Disparities in Transportation-scarce Areas

Online grocery delivery services present new opportunities to address food disparities, especially in underserved areas. However, such services have not been systematically evaluated. This study evaluates such services' potential to provide healthy-food access and influence healthy-food purchases among individuals living in transportation-scarce and low-resource areas. We conducted a pilot experiment with 20 participants consisting of a randomly assigned group's 1-month use of an online grocery delivery service, and a control group's 1-month collection of grocery receipts, and a set of semi-structured interviews. We found that online grocery delivery services (a) serve as a feasible model to healthy-food access if they are affordable and amenable to multiple payment forms and (b) could lead to healthier selections. We contribute policy recommendations to bolster affordability of healthy-food access and design opportunities to promote healthy foods to support the adoption and use of these services among low-resource and transportation-scarce groups.