Studying the Impact of Ecological Momentary Interventions on Sugary-Beverage Consumption by Children Through Age 2 in Low-Income Families

The first 1,000 days describes the period from pre-pregnancy through age 2 years, and is increasingly recognized as a critical period for development of childhood obesity. The overall goal of this study is to test mobile technology-based ecologic momentary interventions (EMIs) to deliver policy-relevant health messages among families living in Washington Heights, a low-income New More

Promoting Responsive Bottle-Feeding Practices Among Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) Mothers to Reduce Infants’ Rapid Weight Gain and Obesity

Bottle-fed infants are at significantly greater risk for overfeeding and rapid weight gain (RWG), yet few studies focus on promoting healthy feeding practices for bottle-feeding caregivers. Bottle-feeding caregivers receive little support related to learning appropriate bottle-feeding practices, and this problem is pronounced in low-income, minority populations at higher risk for bottle-feeding, use of unhealthy feeding More

Evaluation of the USDA FINI Program Finds Benefits for Consumers, Farmers and Retailers, and Local Economies

In December 2018, Congress passed a new farm bill which included a reauthorization of the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Food Insecurity Nutrition Incentive (FINI) Grant Program. This brief summarizes the findings of a recent qualitative evaluation of FINI, which concludes that the program has benefits for consumers, farmers and retailers, and local economies. This More

A Qualitative Evaluation of the United States Department of Agriculture’s Food Insecurity Nutrition Incentive (FINI) Grant Program

This research describes findings from interviews conducted with grantees of multi-year community-based and large-scale projects funded by the FINI mechanism, as well as with stakeholders who could speak to FINI on a broader level. A total of 22 interviews were conducted with 19 organizations. Key elements addressed in this evaluation include: 1) Best practices and More

Measuring Micro-Level Effects of a New Supermarket: Do Residents Within 0.5 Mile Have Improved Dietary Behaviors?

This study aimed to examine whether a newly opened supermarket in the Bronx, NY, changed household food availability and consumption of healthy and unhealthy food items among families who lived within half a mile of the new supermarket. Participants were recruited through street intercept surveys, with a subset of respondents later completing a 24-hour dietary More

Studying the Effectiveness of an Intervention to Increase Water Access and Appeal for Underserved Populations Outside School Settings

In June 2016, the Philadelphia City Council passed a 1.5 cents per ounce tax on sugar-sweetened beverages (SSBs). Given the tax, the climate for promoting water and discouraging SSB consumption in Philadelphia is ideal for testing interventions that may increase water consumption. Specific aims of this study are to: l) determine the effectiveness of a More

Improved Parental Dietary Quality is Associated with Children’s Dietary Intake Through the Home Environment

This study aimed to assess the relative impact of the home food environment on children’s diet after the introduction of a new supermarket in a food desert. This study builds upon a natural experiment to longitudinally examine the food-purchasing behaviors and diets among a randomly selected population of households in two major Pittsburgh food desert More

Consumer Underestimation of Sodium in Fast Food Restaurant Meals: Results From a Cross-Sectional Observational Study

Restaurants are key venues for reducing sodium intake in the United States but little is known about consumer perceptions of sodium in restaurant foods. This study aimed to fill this gap by examining the accuracy of consumer estimates of sodium in restaurant meals. In 2013 and 2014, meal receipts and questionnaires were collected from adults More