The overall goal of the proposed analysis is to facilitate the successful implementation of the Healthy Eating Research Nutrition Guidelines for the Charitable Food System through the following four components: (1 Scoring – evaluate all food products provided through the federal food distribution programs (e.g., TEFAP, CSFP, FDPIR) according to the HER nutrition guidelines and make this information publicly available; (2 Naming – build upon the HER nutrition guidelines’ 11 food categories to develop a food item naming convention for food banks to use on their item cards by convening a small, national panel of leading food bank nutrition professionals; 3) Implementing – implement the naming convention into WellSCAN Global (the database that houses UPCs and HER Ranks; and 4) Building – input records of food products to build WellSCAN Global.
Start Date: January 2022
Organization: University of Connecticut
Project Lead: Marlene Schwartz, PhD
Resource Type: Commissioned Research Project Summary
Focus Area: Food Access
Keywords: Food insecurity, Food systems
Related Research
January 2024
Food Insecurity and the Child Tax Credit
Food insecurity puts people at risk for many poor physical and mental health outcomes. Food insecurity stayed stable during much of the COVID-19 pandemic but rose significantly from 2021-2022 among U.S. households with children. Many federal supports were offered during the COVID-19 pandemic. These included expansions in food assistance programs like SNAP, as well as MoreNovember 2023
Evaluating the impact of state-level economic-support policies on the nutritional health of kids and families
To address ongoing concerns of child poverty across the United States, states have introduced and modified family economic security policies related to the state minimum wage (MW) and state earned income tax credit (EITC). While poor nutritional health disproportionately impacts children who experience poverty, few studies have examined the potentially beneficial effects of state-level MW MoreNovember 2023