A Qualitative Evaluation of Double Up Food Bucks Farmers’ Market Incentive Program Access

Objective: Explore factors affecting access to and use of Double Up Food Bucks (DUFB), a farmers' market program that doubles Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits for use toward the purchase of fruits and vegetables (FV).

Design: Focus groups.

Setting: Metro and nonmetro counties in Utah and western Upstate New York.

Participants: Nine groups composed of 62 low-income adults (3-9/group).

Phenomena of interest: Satisfaction with, barriers to, and facilitators of program use; suggestions for improvement.

Analysis: Transcribed verbatim and coded thematically in NVivo 11 software according to template analysis.

Results: Program satisfaction was high and driven by FV affordability, perceived support of local farmers, positive market experiences, and high-quality FV. Primary barriers to using DUFB were lack of program information and inconvenient accessibility. Insufficient program communication was a consistent problem that elicited numerous suggestions regarding expansion of program marketing. Emergent topics included issues related to the token-based administration of DUFB and debate regarding stigma experienced during DUFB participation.

Conclusions and implications: Results suggest that although DUFB elicits many points of satisfaction among users, program reach may be limited owing to insufficient program marketing. Even among satisfied users, discussion of barriers was extensive, indicating that program reach and impact may be bolstered by efforts to improve program accessibility.

Garner JA, Coombs C, Savoie-Roskos MR, Durward C, Seguin RA. A Qualitative Evaluation of Double Up Food Bucks Farmers Market Incentive Program Access. Journal of Nutrition Education and Behavior. 2020. DOI: 10.1016/j.jneb.2019.11.010.