Beginning in school year 2022-2023, California will become the first state to implement a statewide Universal Meals Program for school children. California's Universal Meals Program is designed to build on the foundations of the federal National School Lunch Program (NSLP) and School Breakfast Program (SBP). Nutrition Policy Institute researcher Wendi Gosliner shared preliminary results of how the school nutrition community has implemented the meal programs during the 2021-22 school year and how they are thinking about this new program at a webinar hosted by the California Local School Wellness Policy on Thursday, June 2, 2022. Results were collected from a February 2022 survey of just over half of California's school food service directors. This project was funded by the California state legislative office.
Nutrition Policy Institute researcher and policy advisor, Christina Hecht, will speak at an upcoming Childhood Obesity Intervention Cost-Effectiveness Study online coffee chat Thurs., May 19, 2022, from 10-10:50 a.m. PT on Improving Drinking Water Equity & Access in Schools on. Hecht will share findings from evaluating the potential cost-effectiveness of a strategy to improve access to drinking water in California schools in collaboration with project partners Jessie Gouck from the California Department of Public Health and Joanne Seavy-Hultquist from the Santa Clara County Public Health Department. Speakers will discuss how improving access to safe and appealing drinking water can be a key part of creating a healthy school environment that will set children up for a healthy future. Participants will be able to connect and learn from others about current initiatives, opportunities, and challenges to increase access to quality drinking water in their schools and communities. Hecht also coordinates the National Drinking Water Alliance. Register for free online.
- Author: Danielle L. Lee
- Editor: Wendi Gosliner
Wendi Gosliner, senior researcher and policy advisor at the Nutrition Policy Institute, will co-present on Thursday, Apr. 14 a webinar on ‘Defining and expanding plant-based food: Why it matters and where it's headed'. Webinar participants will learn about needed food policy to support the growth and innovation of plant-based foods, the unique challenges the plant-based foods industry faces, and what questions consumers could be asking when assessing the food landscape. Gosliner will co-present with Sabina Vyas, senior director of impact strategies at the Plant Based Foods Association and Plant Based Foods Institute. The Plant Futures initiative launched in 2021 as a multidisciplinary program at the University of California Berkeley focused on plant-centric food systems and their impacts on human health, animal welfare, and planetary sustainability, with programming expanding to campuses across the globe. The webinar will take place at 5:00 p.m. Pacific Time. Registration is free, open to the public, and available online.
The COVID-19 pandemic had both positive and negative impacts on the implementation of the California Department of Public Health's CalFresh Healthy Living (CFHL) activities over the past year. CFHL, known nationally as SNAP-Ed, supports healthy, active, and nourished lifestyles by teaching Californians about good nutrition and how to stretch their food dollars, while also building partnerships in communities to make the healthy choice, the easy choice. CFHL activities are implemented by California's Local Health Departments (LHDs) and other agencies. Researchers at the University of California (UC) Nutrition Policy Institute (NPI) evaluated the impact of COVID-19 on CFHL efforts using data gathered in the Program Evaluation and Reporting System (PEARS), a tool used by CFHL professionals to track policy, systems, and environmental change efforts (often referred to as PSE), direct nutrition education, indirect education, partnerships, and multi-sector coalitions. In addition, NPI researchers surveyed 54 LHDs in October 2020 to understand more about how the pandemic impacted their programs. Evaluation results showed that LHDs found new ways to deliver CFHL interventions during COVID‐19, building on existing capacity and branching out into new areas, including developing new sites and partners, developing new skills to implement programming virtually, and developing novel food procurement and distribution mechanisms. NPI researchers presented results from their evaluation in a March 23, 2021 webinar, titled Challenges and Opportunities for Local Health Departments Implementing CalFresh Healthy Living during a Pandemic, with over 50 state agency and LHD staff in attendance. The webinar was hosted by the NPI PEARS team, including Carolyn Rider, Janice Kao, Christina Becker, and Evan Talmage in collaboration with Jennifer Murphy and Kylie Gacad from California State University, Chico, Anna Luciano from Orange County Health Care Agency, and Jessica Bellow and Gaby Gregg, from Community Action Partnership of Orange County. The webinar slides and recording are available online.
Nutrition Policy Institute (NPI) and affiliated researchers recently conducted research across the University of California (UC) to develop new survey questions to assess student homeless and housing insecurity. They presented their findings during a free webinar, "Redefining Basic Needs and Assessing Housing Insecurity in Higher Education" on August 13, 2020. The webinar was featured NPI affiliated researcher Suzanna Martinez of UC San Francisco and the research team, Erin Esaryk and Eli Jimenez. Martinez shared the newly developed questions for the assessment of homelessness and housing insecurity, provided a student-informed definition of basic needs, and shared UC student experiences of housing and food insecurity from multiple campuses. These findings provide a comprehensive student definition of basic needs to inform research, programs, and policy to address housing and food insecurity in higher education. Findings were discussed in a question and answer session with student leader, Gwen Chodur, of the UC Graduate & Professional Council. The event was co-hosted by Ruben Canedo from UC Berkeley and Tim Galarneau from UC Santa Cruz, co-chairs of the UC Basic Needs Systemwide Effort. The webinar recording is available online. This research project was funded by the UC Global Food Initiative and the full research report and survey questions are available for download online.