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Long-Term Research Agenda
The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s (RWJF) commitment to child obesity ends in December 2025, marking the conclusion of a two-decade investment in Healthy Eating Research (HER). As part of our RWJF legacy, HER is developing a national research agenda for policy, systems, and environmental (PSE) interventions and strategies to promote food and nutrition security, optimal diet quality, and achieve healthy weights among U.S. children, adolescents, and families.
Four expert-led reviews are being conducted as part of this project, each focused on a critical life stage or system: 1) Early Childhood, 2) School-Age Children, 3) Family and Community Nutrition Supports, and 4) Shaping the Food Environment. The reviews are being conducted by expert writing teams, each producing a publishable paper.
- Early Childhood: Kate Bauer, Alison Tovar
- School-age Children: Juliana Cohen, Erin Hager
- Family and Community Nutrition Supports: Cindy Leung, Julia Wolfson
- Shaping the Food Environment: Christina Roberto, Alyssa Moran
An advisory board will provide strategic guidance and ensure scientific rigor and policy relevance throughout the project.
The resulting National Research Agenda will be a consensus-driven roadmap, informed by these literature reviews, as well as input from organizations and individuals working to shift policies, systems, and environments to support nutrition equity. Our hope is that this research agenda will be a critical tool for our nation — guiding researchers, policymakers, funders, and advocates toward the most promising solutions to improve child and family nutrition. By synthesizing evidence, identifying urgent gaps, and setting priorities, it will ensure resources flow to strategies with the greatest potential to improve child and family nutrition.
Rapid-Response Research Agenda
Given recent changes to nutrition policies and programs and the food environment landscape, the need for new evidence on how these changes impact nutrition, health, and food access is greater than ever. HER has also published a research agenda intended to provide a blueprint for immediate (i.e., 12-18 month) research needs to inform strategies to improve access to healthy foods, diet quality, and healthy weights among children and families. This 2026-2027 Rapid Response Research Agenda presents an overview of priority policy issues organized by life stage or federal nutrition program, followed by a set of research priorities aligned with three overarching themes that emerged across topic areas. The resulting research agenda reflects the collective expertise of leading researchers, advocates, and funders.