The Nutrition Policy Institute (NPI) works in partnership with the California Department of Public Health (CDPH) and local health departments (LHDs) to evaluate CDPH's CalFresh Healthy Living (CFHL) program, which is known federally as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program Education Program (SNAP-Ed). Over 60 LHDs in California partner with CDPH to operate the CHFL program in ways that are consistent with state and federal guidance but responsive to local context. This non-standardized approach coupled with the size and scope of CDPH-CFHL present challenges for evaluation. Gail Woodward-Lopez, an NPI researcher, presented an overview of the CDPH-CFHL evaluation model and how the interrelated components work together to create a comprehensive nimble approach to evaluation aligned with the SNAP-Ed Evaluation Framework. The presentation took place at the Association of SNAP Nutrition Education Administrators (ASNNA) 2021 virtual conference. Woodward-Lopez presented on the development of intervention dose scores for assessing CFHL-CDPH statewide outcomes. Evaluation results using dose scores show significant associations between CDPH-CFHL school-site intervention exposure (or dose) with student aerobic fitness and student fruit and vegetable consumption. In the presentation, Woodward-Lopez also demonstrated how the CDPH-CFHL evaluation approach allowed NPI to make adaptations to capture the influence of the COVID-19 pandemic and state nutrition legislation.

The Berkeley Food Institute (BFI) Graduate Student Council is inviting graduate student scholars, community members, and artists to submit proposal abstracts of speeches, scholarly papers, or in-progress film/mixed media works to discuss at their first annual Food Systems Conference, titled “ Biomigrations: Food Sovereignty, Security, and Justice in the Americas”. Biomigrations, as BFI graduate student fellow Jesus Nazario generally defines it, is a way to reconsider notions of Life and Movement. It is a way to explore one's community, self, and spirit(s) through Indigenous rooting, refusal, and violence. Biomigrations is premised on the idea that humans need to know where they have come from (Indigenous rooting), how they have arrived at such becoming (refusal), and how they are enacting structural pain(s) to humans and non-humans through their Being (violence). Example topics include, but are not limited to: traditional ecological knowledge, community food systems, land rematriation, food and nutrition policy, cooperatives, agroecology, feminist food justice, biotechnology, transnational foodways, sustainable development, undocumented farmworker labor, non-human centered research, food recovery, and regenerative agriculture. The virtual conference will take place on April 2-3, 2021, and is free to all participants and attendees The deadline for proposal abstract submissions is Sunday, February 21, 2021 at 11:59pm (Pacific Time).

Nutrition Policy Institute's (NPI) Lorrene Ritchie was awarded $50,000 from the David and Lucile Packard Foundation to examine participant perceptions and satisfaction with the federal Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) during the COVID-19 pandemic. The project will survey over 6,000 participants in WIC in 11 U.S. states and one tribal organization about their experiences with WIC during the pandemic. The project aims to support efforts to increase participation and retention on WIC by identifying promising practices adopted during the pandemic. Collaborators include the National WIC Association, Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, Public Health Foundation Enterprise WIC, Pepperdine University, the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, California WIC Association, Nourish California, Vermont WIC, and Wisconsin WIC. The one-year project begins February 1, 2021 with NPI researcher Danielle Lee as the project manager.