Adapting a 1% or Less Milk Campaign for a Hispanic/Latino Population: The Adelante Con Leche Semi-Descremada 1% Experience

Purpose. Describe and evaluate a media campaign to encourage 1% or nonfat milk consumption. Design. Uncontrolled pre/post test. Setting. One largely rural (Santa Paula) and one urban (East Los Angeles) California community. Subjects. Community residents and milk vendors in primarily low-income Latino/Hispanic communities. Intervention. The “1% or Less” milk campaign, which promotes substitution of 2% fat or whole milk with 1% or less fat milk was adapted and implemented. Measures. Comparison of post-campaign milk sales with pre-campaign sales. Analysis. Chi-square tests of independence used to compare precampaign and postcampaign sales. Results. There were decreases in the proportion of whole milk sold and increases in the proportion of reduced-fat, low-fat, and nonfat milk sold in the weeks following each campaign (Santa Paula: p = .0165; East Los Angeles: p < .0001). However, follow-up data from East Los Angeles suggest that these changes were not sustained. The proportions of the different units of milk sold also changed in the weeks following each campaign (p < .0001). Sales of whole milk gallon units decreased from 36.3% to 28.4% in Santa Paula, and from 43.5% to 10.2% in East Los Angeles. Conclusion. Highly focused campaigns to promote substitution of high-fat milk with low-fat or nonfat milk can show dramatic initial changes in sales patterns. However, whether such campaigns can have a sustained impact in largely Latino/Hispanic communities is not evident.