Quantitative Evaluation of Produce Prescription Programs in the United States: A Scoping Review

Top Things to Know

Produce prescriptions are consistently evaluated for outcomes that matter most to Food Is Medicine programs.

Consistent use of validated tools for dietary intake, food security, and health outcomes would improve comparability across programs and strengthen the evidence needed for policy, healthcare financing, and program scale-up.

Understanding the broader effects of healthcare utilization, costs, community impacts, and implementation factors will be essential for demonstrating the full value of produce prescription programs to healthcare systems, payers, and policymakers.

Summary of Conclusion/Findings

This scoping review examined 91 U.S.-based produce prescription (PRx) program sources to understand how these food-is-medicine interventions are being quantitatively evaluated. The authors found substantial variation in evaluation approaches, with the most commonly measured outcomes being demographic characteristics, dietary intake, health indicators, food and financial security, and self-efficacy or nutrition knowledge. Fruit and vegetable intake, BMI, blood pressure, and HbA1c were among the most frequently assessed health-related measures, while healthcare utilization, community-level impacts, and program implementor outcomes were evaluated far less often. The review identified more than 35 different dietary assessment tools and many non-standardized measures, making it difficult to compare results across programs. Importantly, the authors highlighted major gaps in measuring broader impacts such as healthcare costs, food environments, provider experiences, and implementation factors. Overall, the findings suggest that produce prescription programs show promise for improving nutrition, food security, and health outcomes, but stronger and more standardized evaluation methods are needed to build a more robust evidence base.