Evaluating the Impact of Subsidizing Purchases of Fresh Produce in Supermarkets for Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program Recipients

The 2014 Farm Bill Authorization included $100 million to promote the purchase of fresh produce among Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) participants through matching financial incentives for every SNAP dollar spent on fresh produce. As part of this, the Fair Food Network (FFN) received over $5 million to expand its SNAP match program, Double Up More

Examining Rural Store Owners’ Perceptions of USDA’s Minimum Stocking Requirements

The purpose of this project is to examine rural store owners’ perceptions about the United States Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) proposed rule that updates the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) vendor requirements and to understand the barriers and facilitators to implementation. The study will include a content analysis on the public comments on USDA’s proposed More

Measures of Retail Food Store Environments and Sales: Review and Implications for Healthy Eating Initiatives

This review describes available measures of retail food store environments, including data collection methods, characteristics of measures, the dimensions most commonly captured across methods, and their strengths and limitations. Articles were included if they were published between 1990 and 2015 in an English-language peer-reviewed journal and presented original research findings on the development and/or use More

The Use of Brand Mascots and Media Characters: Opportunities for Responsible Food Marketing to Children

This issue brief examines the evidence on how food, beverage, restaurant, and entertainment companies have used brand mascots and cartoon media characters to influence children’s diet and health. Brand mascots and media characters represent a broad range of human or fictional kid-friendly animals or animated objects used by companies to market their products. Many of More

Understanding the Feasibility of Implementing the Recommendations for Minimum Stocking Levels and Marketing Strategies for Small Retail Food Stores

The purposes of this project are to: 1) understand the barriers and facilitators to the implementation of the Minimum Stocking Levels and Marketing Strategies of Healthful Foods for Small Retail Food Stores recommendations developed in 2015 among stores most likely to face challenges (rural and urban, dollar and family-owned stores), and 2) obtain a baseline More

Evaluating State Regulation of Early Care and Education Settings to Strengthen Licensing Laws Related to Healthy Feeding and Active Play

The aim of this study is to describe state child-care licensing laws relating to healthy eating and active play targeting children ages 0 to 2 in early care and education settings for all U.S. states and territories. Investigators will use legal research methods to search state websites, the commercial legal databases LexisNexis® and WestlawNext®, and More

Comparative Evaluation of a South Carolina Policy to Improve Nutrition in Child Care

In April 2012, South Carolina enacted 13 nutrition standards for child-care centers serving lower-income children throughout the state. This study evaluated consistency with the standards before and after the policy took effect using North Carolina, a state not making policy changes, as the comparison. Researchers recorded foods and beverages served to children and documented the More

Gathering Baseline Data to Understand Implementation Changes and the Impact of the New Child and Adult Care Food Program Standards

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) recently proposed updated nutrition standards for foods and beverages served in Child and Adult Care Food Program (CACFP) participating child-care centers and homes. This study will contribute to the tracking of successes and challenges following implementation of the new nutrition standards, and will build off of two prior HER-funded More

Studying the Nutritional Profile of Packaged Food Purchases under the Revised Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children

This will be the first systematic study to quantify on a national scale how the Special Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) food package changes, which were made in 2009 and finalized in 2014, relate to packaged food purchases (PFP) before and after these changes were made. The changes were intended More