The AACORN Legacy

AACORN Past Projects

Shaping Our Health by Influencing Food Trends, or SHIFT Demand

From 2007 through 2015, with support from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, AACORN examined the relationship of food and beverage advertisement in Black communities and food purchasing patterns. This project sought to understand how targeted marketing and product availability influenced consumer preference and buying decisions, and to explore how a community-led social media campaign might increase the availability of healthier food options. Over the duration of the SHIFT Demand project, AACORN utilized a mixed methods approach to understand the influence of marketing efforts, benefits of price discounts on healthier food options, and stakeholder views on the need for change. AACORN developed an online counter-marketing campaign targeted to Black teenagers to encourage teens to get engaged and advocate for greater access to healthy food options in their communities.

Environments Supporting Healthy Eating (ESHE)

In 2013, AACORN developed the Environments Supporting Healthy Eating (ESHE), which is an interactive index that provides food environment scores at the state, county, and community levels. ESHE is a research tool that allows users to explore a number of variables relate to healthy eating availability in a given community.