Avaliação da efetividade de intervenção de base comunitária voltada para a promoção do consumo de frutas e hortaliças em territórios de baixa renda da cidade do Rio de Janeiro

Abstract

Increasingly consistent evidence have been subsidising the definition of recommendations regarding the consumption of fruits and vegetables (F&V) as a protective factor against the occurrence of non-communicable diseases. These recommendations have been put into action through several initiatives to promote F&V consumption. The scarcity of studies on the effectiveness of interventions dedicated to increasing the consumption of F&V has motivated the conception of this project, which aims at evaluating the impact of a strategy that integrates several actions to promote the consumption of F&V among families that live in low income communities in Rio de Janeiro, RJ, Brazil. The study took place in three communities covered by the Brazilian Family Health Strategy, from the West Region of the municipality of Rio de Janeiro, between 2007 and 2010. A communitarian before-and-after intervention study design was adopted. Data collection has included two baseline assessments and a post-intervention one on the household availability of F&V and other eating and food related practices. The intervention has been shown to be effective on increasing F&V household availability in all communities. Families that were most exposed to all elements of intervention s actions have experienced a greater increase in the acquisition of F&V between the pre- and post-intervention moments. Even when living in less favourable sociodemographic scenarios, families that were more exposed to the intervention have increased their F&V household availability, albeit this improvement was not statistically significant. On the other hand, it has also been demonstrated that increases in the acquisition of soft drinks and biscuits have attenuated the intervention effect.