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

Understanding the lost opportunity of the Child and Adult Care Food Program in improving child nutrition and reducing health inequities

The USDA Child and Adult Care Food Program (CACFP) plays a large role in supporting nutrition in child care settings, specifically targeting these benefits to low-income populations. Foods provided to children participating in CACFP programs must meet specific nutrition standards in order to be reimbursed with federal funds. This study seeks to understand how the 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

Conducting a health-care-technology-based intervention to reduce sugary-beverage consumption for diverse populations of children

The healthcare sector is a promising venue for systems interventions to reduce children’s sugar-sweetened beverage (SSB) consumption, but clinical staff lack the time for high-intensity in-person interventions. We propose to develop and pilot a parent-informed, technology-enabled healthcare system-based intervention. The goals of the intervention are to: reduce SSB consumption, promote guideline-appropriate levels of fruit juice More

Implementing and evaluating the impact for children from birth to age 5 of expanding the Cash-Value Benefit for the purchase of fruits and vegetables

The $9/month Cash Value Benefit (CVB) provided by the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) is only enough to purchase less than one-quarter of a child’s daily recommended intake of fruits and vegetables. The primary aim of this project is to implement and evaluate an expansion of the monthly Cash Value More

Expanding and evaluating a community-based intervention to increase healthy beverage consumption by Navajo preschool children

Diet-related disparities among indigenous youth are driven, in part, by excess sugar-sweetened beverage consumption and limited access to drinking water. Water is K’é targets environmental change at early childhood education (ECE) sites and community-wide systems change to promote a Diné culture of health. ECE sites will select and implement site-based and community-level changes to address More

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

Studying the Community Eligibility Provision’s Broad Impact–On Child Nutrition, Health, Academics, School Attendance, and Family Food Security

In 2010, the Healthy Hunger-Free Kids Act (HHFKA) initiated a number of major changes in child nutrition programs, including the establishment of the Community Eligibility Provision (CEP) for the National School Lunch and School Breakfast Programs. Implemented nationwide in SY 2014/15 to increase school meal participation and improve food security among at-risk children, the CEP More