A Click Away from Healthier Meals: CCHE evaluated an Online Grocery Program for people experiencing high risk pregnancies

CCHE recently wrapped up evaluation of a demonstration project with Attane Health and a Medicaid health plan, funded by Health Forward to test a simple idea: could home-delivered groceries ordered online plus virtual nutrition coaching make life a little easier for people with high risk pregnancies? Over about two years, 211 members enrolled in this program, most folks placed at least one order, and they often continued to use the benefit after birth.

Key takeaways from our evaluation:

• Attane reached its target audience of people with high risk pregnancies and substantial food insecurity. Many eligible members never enrolled or underused the benefit, suggesting room to improve outreach and engagement.
• Participants were frequently buying food for the whole household in addition to food for the pregnant person, most often ordering pantry staples, snacks, beverages, and meat or fish.
• Fresh produce appeared in a minority of orders, though those with the highest financial need were most likely to spend their benefit on fruits, vegetables, and higher cost proteins.
• Coaching sessions were highly tailored—covering topics like breastfeeding nutrition, budget friendly meals, and simple healthy cooking—and were associated with greater benefit use, pointing to coaching as beneficial for increasing program usage.
• Survey respondents reported benefits to participation: increased nutrition knowledge, more confidence shopping for healthy foods, and healthful shifts in eating habits, along with reduced financial stress and better access to quality food, even as many households’ overall finances worsened.
• The evaluation did not find differences in clinical outcomes between Attane participants and similar patients who did not enroll in Attane.

Next steps: Many participants started ordering groceries late in pregnancy and used the benefit in ways that may not directly affect birth outcomes. Our partners are now leaning into the strongest signals—food security, financial stress, and nutrition knowledge—while exploring earlier enrollment, stronger communication about coaching, and more nuanced measures of how programs like Attane support families’ everyday wellbeing.

Read the Final Evaluation Report

For more information: elena.s.kuo@kp.org