Using COVID-relief funds, UDSA temporarily expanded the WIC FV cash value benefit (CVB) from $9-11 to ~$35/month/person for seven months, June – December 2021. The objective of this study is to use focus groups with a diverse group of WIC participants in North Carolina to examine barriers and facilitators to utilizing the temporarily expanded CVB, More

In 2018, Healthy Eating Research (HER)—a national program of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF)—developed a national research agenda to reduce the consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages (SSB) and increase access to and consumption of safe drinking water among 0- to 5-year-olds. Through this process, it became clear that a lack of consistent recommendations for beverage More

The purpose of this study is to evaluate a novel Electronic Health Record (EHR)-based WIC referral and care coordination program. Specifically, this program refers children to WIC and provides a secure data connection for communication between health care providers and WIC team members. The specific aims are to: 1) Better understand the WIC referral gap More

The purpose of this study is to examine whether front-of-package (FOP) disclosures increase parents’ (of children ages 1-5) ability to accurately identify the amount of juice and the presence of added sugar and non-nutritive sweeteners (NNS) in children’s drinks (fruit drinks, flavored waters, 100% juice and diluted juice/water blends). The specific aims are: (1) develop More

The purpose of this analysis is to provide useful guidance to policymakers and advocates regarding sweetened beverage tax (SBT) allocation and dedication. The specific aims are to: 1) collect all state SBT bills proposed in the United States in the past ten years, and all adopted local laws along with a representative set of proposed More

The overall goal of this study is to develop a Healthy Charitable Foods Index that can be used by food banks to translate the pounds by category values into a value that corresponds meaningfully to the USDA’s Healthy Eating Index (HEI) scores. The subrecipient will compare a set of foods in the charitable food system More

The overall goal of this study is to evaluate the effectiveness of an interactive, eLearning beverage policy training (iBevSmart) paired with eCoaching (technical assistance consultation and resources) for ECE centers in Georgia. The iBevSmart guided training features four modules on water, milk, juice, and SSBs, and includes an interactive avatar, videos, and engagement activities. The More

The study goals and objectives are: 1) To conduct mixed methods research to construct case studies in 7 diverse healthy food-focused retail food stores located in low-income communities throughout the United States; 2) To understand experiences of these stores in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic, including strengths and vulnerabilities; and 3) To conduct a More

The study will address a gap in knowledge, providing insight into facilitators and barriers to CACFP uptake by eligible centers and actionable recommendations to address challenges in high-need areas where child poverty is exceptionally high, but resources are limited. The project goals and objectives are to: (1) Assess the historical and structural facilitators and barriers More

This project will identify commonly used obesity prevention programs that have limited effectiveness for obesity prevention and are thus a suboptimal use of limited public health resources. The specific aims are to: 1) Identify two commonly implemented childhood obesity prevention interventions targeting children ages 0-8 that may lack evidence for impact; 2) Conduct a systematic More