- Author: Danielle L. Lee
The University of California (UC) Merced Farmworker Health Research Conference brought together researchers from across the country, UC officials, local and state leaders, and community members on April 9 for a virtual conference on farmworker health. The conference is part of a study that started in May 2020 and runs through June 2022. Researchers aim to expand on findings from the 1999 California Agricultural Health Workers Survey, conducted by the California Institute for Rural Studies, and will focus on the long-term health of farmworkers. University of California, Division of Agriculture and Natural Resources (UC ANR), Nutrition Policy Institute (NPI) researcher Ron Strochlic will be contributing to the study by conducting interviews with growers and other stakeholders to identify ways to increase farmworkers' access to health care. Strochlic also served on the conference planning committee, in collaboration with the event chair, Edward Flores, co-director of the Community and Labor Center at UC Merced, and fellow committee members Ana Padilla, executive director of the Community and Labor Center, public health Professor Paul Brown and graduate student Nimrat Sandhu of UC Merced, Christy Getz, associate cooperative extension specialist of UC Berkeley, consultant Joel Diringer and legislative advocate Noe Paramo of California Rural Legal Assistance Foundation. The conference was funded in support by the California Department of Public Health and the California Endowment. Conference presentations and discussions were uploaded to the Community and Labor Center's YouTube channel, where they will be available until June 9, 2021.
Nutrition Policy Institute's Suzanne Rauzon received funding from the Kaiser Permanente Washington Health Research Institute to conduct a community health needs assessment for community members served by Kaiser Permanente in California. The 10-month project began in February 2021.
- Author: Danielle L. Lee
Nutrition Policy Institute's (NPI) Lorrene Ritchie and Stanford Medicine Department of Pediatrics' Anisha Patel were awarded $149,545 from the Dairy Council of California to examine the effects of different milk types on young children's health. The pilot study will enroll 30 Northern California families with children 12 months old to receive either whole milk or non-fat milk. The type of milk optimal for the health of young children has not been clearly established. Therefore, the pilot study will examine how different milk types affect children's weight, length, waist circumference, heart health, cognitive development, and gut microbiota. Results from the pilot study will be used to inform a larger, more rigorous randomized control trial involving 500 children. The 14-month project began in March 2021 with NPI's Suzanne Rauzon as the project manager.
- Author: Danielle L. Lee
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.
The federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program for Women, Infants and Children (WIC) provides nutritious foods, information on healthy eating including breastfeeding promotion and support, and referrals to health care to over 6.3 million low-income pregnant, postpartum, and breastfeeding women, infants, and children up to age 5 in the US. Nutrition Policy Institute's (NPI) Lorrene Ritchie is the Co-Principal Investigator of the national WIC Infant and Toddler Feeding Practices Study-2 (ITFPS-2), which received additional funding from the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) in partnership with Westat, Inc. to extend data collection for children up to 9 years of age enrolled in the national WIC Infant and Toddler Feeding Practices Study-2 (ITFPS-2). Ritchie and her NPI research team will contribute to the investigation of dietary practices and the health and nutritional status of children in this cohort during their ninth year of life. This project builds off the WIC ITFPS-2 study funded by the USDA Food and Nutrition Services, which began in 2011. The study extension begins in October 2020 and continues for five years.