The California Nutrition Incentive Program provides CalFresh—known as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program nationally—participants monetary incentives for the purchase of California grown fruits and vegetables at Certified Farmers Markets and small businesses. Nutrition Policy Institute was recently awarded a contract to determine how CNIP benefits can be equitably distributed in communities where participating retailers operate and to understand the impact of CNIP participation on participants' produce purchases, produce intake, and food and nutrition security. The 27-month project started on January 1, 2023, and includes NPI's Wendi Gosliner as Principal Investigator, Sridharshi Hewawitharana as project manager, and Samantha Sam-Chen as data collection manager. The team has conducted previous evaluations of CNIP, showing its promising associations with decreased participant food insecurity as well as highlighting participants' fondness and appreciation for the program and their perceptions that it increases the quantity and variety of California-grown fruits and vegetables they consume. This project is funded by a contract with the California Department of Food and Agriculture.
- Author: Katherine Lanca
- Editor: Danielle L. Lee
- Editor: Lorrene Ritchie
Healthy default beverage laws require restaurants to list healthier beverages—such as water or unflavored milk as opposed to sugary drinks—as the default option for children's meals. These laws intend to address unhealthy beverage consumption by young children, directing consumers toward healthier beverage choices at no additional cost. New research evaluates the adherence of children's meals to healthy default beverage laws from online restaurant meal ordering platforms available in Los Angeles, Baltimore, and New York City. Among over 100 of the top-grossing restaurant chains sampled, fewer than 3% of online children meal orders in any jurisdiction adhered to the strictest interpretation of the healthy default beverage laws. Varying adherence to healthy default beverage laws by jurisdiction was found and may be attributable to differing definitions of a healthy beverage. For example, California's law considers non-flavored milk and water as healthy default beverage options, while Baltimore and New York laws also allow 100% juice and flavored milk. Policy can be optimized by clearly defining healthy beverages, bundled children's meals, and what constitutes adherence to the law for online ordering platforms. The study, published in the American Journal of Preventative Medicine, was conducted by Daniel Zaltz and Sara Benjamin-Neelson of Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Danielle Lee, Gail Woodward-Lopez, and Lorrene Ritchie of the Nutrition Policy Institute, and Sara Bleich of Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health with partial support from a grant from the National Institutes of Health (no. T32DK062707).
- Author: Carolyn Chelius
- Editor: Wendi Gosliner
- Editor: Danielle L. Lee
Lack of refrigeration is reported as a leading barrier to corner stores stocking fresh fruits and vegetables. In 2018, the California legislature funded the Department of Food and Agriculture (CDFA) to offer a Healthy Refrigeration Grant Program, providing grants to corner stores in food resource-poor neighborhoods to purchase refrigeration units to increase access to California-grown fruits and vegetables. A new report from NPI shows storeowners that participated in the program perceived increases in their store's ability to sell produce after installing the CDFA refrigerator. Storeowners reported the CDFA refrigerator allowed them to waste less produce and increase the variety and freshness of produce they sell. Of the 51 storeowners that participated in the study, only 14% reported “lack of refrigeration” as a barrier to stocking fresh fruits and vegetables after participating in the program, compared to 51% before participating in the program. The findings are also summarized in a two-page policy brief. Report and brief authors include Carolyn Chelius and Wendi Gosliner from the UC Nutrition Policy Institute, as well as former NPI intern Caroline Long and volunteer Taylor Baisey from UC Berkeley. The work was funded by CDFA.
The California Fruit and Vegetable EBT Pilot Project aims to develop and refine a scalable model for increasing the purchase and consumption of California-grown fresh fruits and vegetables by delivering supplemental benefits to CalFresh recipients in a way that can be easily adopted by USDA Food and Nutrition Service authorized retailers in the future. The California Department of Social Services EBT, in partnership with CalFresh, Office of Systems Integration, and California Department of Food & Agriculture awarded three grants to non-profit organizations or government agencies to meet this goal. Nutrition Policy Institute's Wendi Gosliner received $90,313 as part of a larger $537,690 grant from CDSS to collaborate with the Ecology Center to evaluate and understand the experiences and impacts of the pilot project on farmers' market managers, vendors, and CalFresh shoppers. The Ecology Center of Berkeley coordinates the Market Match consortium and will pilot the new program in Los Angeles, San Bernadino, Alameda, Napa and Sacramento counties. The two-year project began on October 1, 2022. The NPI project team includes Carolyn Chelius and Sridharshi Hewawitharana. Gosliner has conducted evaluations of CDFA's Nutrition Incentive Program for the past five years.
- Author: Katherine Lanca
- Editor: Danielle L. Lee
- Editor: Lorrene Ritchie
The American Public Health Association holds an Annual Meeting & Expo for public health professionals to engage, collaborate, and network with the overarching goal of advancing the nation's health. This year's meeting in Boston, November 6-9, 2022 will celebrate 150 Years of Creating the Healthiest Nation: Leading the Path Toward Equity. Nutrition Policy Institute researchers will share findings that bring nutrition equity to the forefront of federal programs, school nutrition, community health, health literacy, and the food retail environment. A list of the poster presentations and live oral presentations is found below.
Retail food environment:
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What can we learn from California's investment in the Healthy Stores Refrigeration Grant Program?
Authors: Carolyn Chelius, Caroline Long, Taylor Baisey, Wendi Gosliner
Wednesday, November 9, 8:30 a.m. - 10:00 a.m.; oral presentation
School meals:
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Providing School Meals to All Students Free of Cost: Challenges and Benefits Reported by School District Foodservice Professionals to Inform California's Policy Implementation
Authors: Wendi Gosliner, Monica Zuercher, Juliana Cohen, Christina Hecht, Michele Polacsek, Kenneth Hecht, Lindsey Turner, Marlene Schwartz, Anisha Patel, Lorrene Ritchie
Monday, November 7, 4:30 p.m. - 6:00 p.m.; oral presentation
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Impact of a teacher intervention to encourage students to eat school lunch
Authors: Hannah Thompson, Stephanie Machado, Kristine Madsen, Renata Cauchon-Robles, Marisa Neelon, Lorrene Ritchie
Monday, November 7, 4:30 p.m. - 6:00 p.m.; oral presentation
SNAP-Ed:
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Evaluation identifies the most promising combinations of school-based Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program-Education (SNAP-Ed) interventions for improving student fitness
Authors: Sridharshi Hewawitharana, Gail Woodward-Lopez, Punam Ohri-Vachaspati, Francesco Acciai, Hannah R. Thompson, Wendi Gosliner
Monday, November 7, 4:30 p.m. - 6:00 p.m.; oral presentation -
Reductions in public health obesity prevention interventions due to COVID-19 disproportionately affect neighborhoods with pre-existing health inequities
Authors: Erin E Esaryk, Carolyn D Rider, Gail Woodward-Lopez
Tuesday, November 8, Session 8; 3:00 p.m. - 4:00 p.m.; poster presentation -
A novel approach to measuring potential for health equity impact in community health interventions
Authors: Janice Kao, Gail Woodward-Lopez, Christina Becker, Carolyn Rider, Erin Esaryk, Evan Talmage
Tuesday, November 8, Session 7; 3:00 p.m. - 4:00 p.m.; poster presentation
WIC:
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Assessing changes associated with expanding the WIC Cash-Value Benefit for the purchase of fruits and vegetables among children age 1 to 5 years: a longitudinal study
Authors: Marisa Tsai, Christopher Anderson, Catherine Martinez, Martha Meza, Lauren Au, Lorrene Ritchie, Shannon Whaley
Tuesday, November 8, 2:30 p.m. - 4:00 p.m.; oral presentation
Other:
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Impact of an arts-based public health literacy program delivered online to high school students during the COVID-19 pandemic
Authors: Hannah Thompson, Jackie Mendelson, Maya Zamek, Gabriel Cortez, Dean Schillinger
Wednesday, November 9, 12:30 p.m. - 2:00 p.m.; oral presentation