Adults with lower incomes are disproportionately affected by poverty, food insecurity, obesity, and diet-related non-communicable diseases (NCDs). In 2020–2021 amid the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) expanded the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) Online Purchasing Pilot program to enable eligible participants to purchase groceries online in 47 states. More

School closures due to the COVID-19 pandemic significantly disrupted children’s access to school meals in 2020 and 2021. School food service authorities (SFAs), which are responsible for planning, sourcing, preparing, and serving school meals, had to rapidly convert their usual on-site meal service operations to more flexible and mobile strategies to distribute meals to students More

Online grocery services are an emerging component of the food system with the potential to address disparities in access to healthy food. We assessed the barriers and facilitators of equitable access to healthy foods in the online grocery environment, and the psychosocial, purchasing, and dietary behaviors related to its use among low-income, diverse populations. Four More

Young children regularly consume sugary fruit drinks, in part because parents may falsely believe they are healthful due to front-of-package (FOP) claims and imagery. The goal of this study was to assess: 1) the prevalence of FOP claims/imagery on fruit-flavored beverages purchased by U.S. households with 0-5-year-olds, and 2) proportional differences in beverages purchased with More

The COVID-19 pandemic presented new challenges and exacerbated existing barriers faced by SNAP participants and administrators, such as inequitable access to SNAP online purchasing, overburdened administrative staff and agency systems, and low digital literacy and technology deficits. In response, SNAP online purchasing increased rapidly by March 2021, and program flexibilities and waivers allowed states to More

During spring of 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic and accompanying public health advisories forced K-12 schools throughout the United States to suspend in-person instruction. School personnel rapidly transitioned to remote provision of academic instruction and wellness services such as school meals and counseling services. The aim of this study was to investigate how schools responded to More

This study aimed to describe policies and practices of online grocery retailers that may affect healthy food access, including retailers participating in the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program Online Purchasing Pilot. This was a cross-sectional, quantitative content analysis of 21 online grocery retail websites from November 2019 to January 2020. Most retailers More

This study aimed to examine how food environments around family child care homes (FCCHs) are associated with the healthfulness of foods served to children. The study included cross-sectional data from a mail survey of 132 Mississippi FCCHs. Rural FCCHs with higher counts of supermarkets, convenience stores, and produce stores had lower compliance with selected best More

This study aimed to describe policies and practices of online grocery retailers that may affect healthy food access, including retailers participating in the US Department of Agriculture’s Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program Online Purchasing Pilot. It used a cross-sectional, quantitative content analysis of 21 online grocery retail websites from November 2019 to January 2020. Most retailers More

This brief provides the results of an analysis of WIC vendor selection and authorization criteria, and operations and management policies established by the 89 administrative agencies in the United States. This study is the first to compile and examine a database of WIC vendor selection and authorization criteria, and operations and management policies established by More