Prioritizing Health in State ESSA Plans and Report Cards to Support the Whole Child

The Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) was signed into law on December 10, 2015, reauthorizing the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965. ESSA created an opportunity to broaden accountability beyond traditional subjects, such as math, to potentially focus on health and wellness in schools. States could select health and wellness-related indicators, and identify strategies More

Policy Approaches for Healthier Food Banking

CSPI, in partnership with researchers from The Lerner Center for Public Health Promotion at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, will conduct a comprehensive scan of policy, business, and legal factors that may support or hamper healthy food bank donations. Findings will be used, in conjunction with HER’s model food bank nutrition standards, to More

Executive Summary: 2020 Rapid Health Impact Assessment on USDA Proposed Changes to School Nutrition Standards

More than 21.8 million school-age children receive free or reduced-price school lunch and 12.6 million children receive free or reduced-price breakfast each day. Since updated nutrition standards for school meals, snack foods, and beverages have been implemented following passage of the 2010 Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act, a growing body of evidence shows their effectiveness in More

Studying facilitators and barriers in coupon redemption for fruits and vegetables by Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children participants

The Special Supplemental Nutrition program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) is a federally-funded nutrition assistance program supporting low-income women, infants, and children. The Farmers Market Nutrition Program (FMNP) provides WIC clients with coupons to purchase fruits and vegetables from approved farmers markets in addition to their regular WIC benefits. Research is inconclusive about the More

Providing actionable evidence for equity-focused strategies to improve diet quality and food security for low-income pregnant women and for infants

Households with children ages 6 and younger are at a particularly high risk of food insecurity (14.3% food insecure). These are also the households in which new pregnancies are most likely to occur. The Special Supplemental Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) is designed to improve the health of low-income pregnant and post-partum women, More

Identifying strategies to improve American Indian women’s participation in the federal Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children

This project aims to develop solutions that will increase participation in the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) program among Native American communities. Native Americans experience high rates of food insecurity and have higher mortality rates due to diet-related chronic diseases compared to other ethnicities. The WIC program has a strong More

Evaluating innovations to overcome barriers to equitable access to and use of federal Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children benefits

In King County, WA, food insecurity is pervasive among low-income children and inequitable by race, yet WIC utilization is also low. We propose to evaluate an innovative WIC mobile strategy to be implemented in 2020 to advance nutrition and food security equity. Mobile WIC teams will bring services to non-traditional community settings (e.g., food banks More

Examining Food Insecurity among Young Children and their Families within the Context of Early Care and Education

The overarching goal of this project is to conduct a mixed-methods formative evaluation to explore food insecurity in low-income center-based ECE settings at both the macro-and micro-levels in order to accomplish the following objectives: 1) Determine the relevance of food insecurity as a priority area within the context of ECE settings and among ECE professionals More

Appalachian Store Owners’ and Managers’ Perspectives on the Role of Their Store in the Community and in Providing Healthier Food to the Community

Appalachian communities have lower access to healthier food sources like grocery stores. Through semi-structured interviews with owner/managers of convenience stores in Appalachian communities, this qualitative study explored perceived roles and business practices of small food retailers using a grounded theory approach. Five themes emerged including strong relationships between stores and customers, the role of the More