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Serving Agriculture and Natural Resource needs in California
Study suggests food and nutrition text-messages sent by a CalFresh (SNAP) agency to all participants can increase purchase and intake of California-grown fruits and vegetables and improve feelings about CalFresh participation
Published on: April 28, 2023

The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), known as CalFresh in California, provides monthly electronic benefits for food purchases to over 40 million individuals with low incomes across the US. However, SNAP agencies do not typically provide  participants with information about food or nutrition. A pilot study was conducted to understand whether a CalFresh agency can send food and nutrition-based text messages, and if so, whether they can be effective. NPI researchers received a grant from the California Department of Food and Agriculture's Specialty Crop Block Grant Program to test the idea. In collaboration with UCSD, ideas42, and the San Diego County Health and Human Services Agency, five monthly SMS text messages in English and Spanish were sent to over 170,000 SNAP households. Each text message contained a link to a website offering additional information on topics including the health benefits of different fruits and vegetables, cost-savings associated with seasonal produce, recipes and tips to reduce food waste. After 5 months, survey respondents showed a significant increase in knowledge about selecting, storing, and preparing fruits and vegetables. Over half of respondents self-reported purchasing and eating more California-grown fruits and vegetables at follow-up and nearly all respondents expressed interest in continuing to receive text messages. The findings suggest that text messages are a promising strategy to provide useful and relevant information on food and nutrition to SNAP participants. The research, published in the Journal of Medical Internet Research, was conducted by Wendi Gosliner, Celeste Felix, Ron Strochlic, and Hannah Thompson from the Nutrition Policy Institute, University of California, Agriculture and Natural Resources; Shana Wright and Blanca Melendrez from the UC San Diego Center for Community Health; Allison Yates-Berg from ideas42; and Hao Tang from Colombia University. Funding for this project was made possible by the U.S. Department of Agriculture's (USDA) Agricultural Marketing Service through grant 19-0001-054. Its contents are solely the responsibility of the authors and do not necessarily represent the official views of the USDA. Additional funding was received from the National Institutes of Health grant UL1TR001442.

Focus Area Tags: Family, Food, Health
Tags: CalFresh (14), Celeste Felix (10), Celeste Felix (10), Hannah Thompson (18), peer-reviewed publication (2), Ron Strochlic (20), SNAP (11), Wendi Gosliner (62)
Research brief on study that identified limited implementation of California’s Healthy Default Beverage law
Published on: November 4, 2022

A new research brief developed by the Nutrition Policy Institute describes a study that identified limited implementation of California's Healthy Default Beverage Law (SB 1192) for orders made online. The law requires restaurants selling children's meals that include a beverage to make the default beverage water, sparkling water, flavored water with no added natural or artificial sweeteners, or unflavored milk or non-dairy milk alternative. Researchers randomly sampled 226 fast food restaurants located in Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program-Education (SNAP-Ed) eligible census tracts in California and “ordered” 631 kids' meals from restaurant websites and three popular online ordering platforms. Researchers recorded beverage offerings as well as additional charges (“upcharges”) for beverages. Findings indicate that only 6% of orders reflected optimal implementation of the Healthy-by-Default Beverage law. Further, 41% of orders that offered water had an upcharge ($0.51 on average) and 11% of orders that offered unflavored milk had an up charge ($0.38 on average). No observations had upcharges for soda. The findings indicate that, in order to support California's SNAP-Ed goal for reducing sugar sweetened beverage intake, specific language, monitoring, and future legislation may be necessary to ensure the law is applied to online-ordering and in-restaurant self-service kiosks. The study and research brief were authored by NPI's Cal Fresh Healthy Living Evaluation Unit, including Hannah Thompson, Ron Strochlic, Sonali Singh, Kaela Plank, Anna Martin, and Gail Woodward-Lopez.

Focus Area Tags: Family, Food, Health
Tags: Gail Woodward-Lopez (23), Hannah Thompson (18), healthy beverages (10), peer reviewed publication (76), policy (29), research brief (21), Ron Strochlic (20), SNAP-ED (20), sugar-sweetened beverages (25)
Researchers target teacher perceptions of school meals to increase student school meal participation
Published on: October 3, 2022

Schools offer a unique environment to increase food security and improve dietary intake among youth. A new study proposes a novel conceptual model to understand teacher's perceptions, behavior modeling, and support of student school lunch participation. A teacher outreach intervention exposed teachers to new school lunch menu items, promoted healthfulness of the school lunch program, and offered teachers educational materials to encourage student participation in the lunch program. Findings include teachers reportedly eating more with students after the intervention, and student agreement that adults at their school encourage them to eat school lunch increased. However, teacher perceptions of school meal healthfulness and taste were unchanged after the intervention. Findings call for further exploration of the determinants of teacher values around school meals to better understand this potential lever for increasing school lunch participation. The study published in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health was conducted by researchers Hannah Thompson and Lorrene Ritchie from the Nutrition Policy Institute, Stephanie Machado and Kristine Madsen from the University of California Berkeley School of Public Health, Renata Cauchon- Robles from San Francisco Unified School District, and Marisa Neelon from the UC Cooperative Extension. The study was funded by the United States Department of Agriculture, National Institute of Food and Agriculture: Technology and Design Innovation to Support 21st Century Nutrition (Grant ID: 2015−68001−23236).

Focus Area Tags: Family, Food, Health
Tags: Hannah Thompson (18), Kristine Madsen (12), Lorrene Ritchie (105), peer reviewed publication (76), school meals (46), schools (35), students (9)
Nutrition Policy Institute to share research findings at the 150th American Public Health Association Annual Meeting
Published on: September 8, 2022

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: 

School meals: 

SNAP-Ed: 

WIC: 

Other: 

Focus Area Tags: Family, Food, Health
Tags: CalFresh Healthy Living (21), Caroline Long (5), Carolyn Chelius (5), Carolyn Rider (9), Christina Becker (7), Christina Hecht (58), conferences (43), equity (2), Erin Esaryk (8), Evan Talmage (7), Gail Woodward-Lopez (23), Hannah Thompson (18), Janice Kao (15), Ken Hecht (20), Lorrene Ritchie (105), Marisa Tsai (27), Monica Zuercher (9), physical activity (3), retail food environments (15), school meals (46), schools (35), SNAP-Ed (20), Sridharshi Hewawitharana (20), Wendi Gosliner (62), WIC (42)
UC researchers propose new tool to measure school food packaging waste as few standardized methodologies exist
Published on: May 13, 2022

Nearly half of the 14,500 tons of solid waste generated by public schools in the US is food packaging. University of California researchers have created a standardized method to measure this waste as a first step toward reducing it. They started by evaluating methods used to quantify and categorize the types of food packaging waste generated and how it is disposed of in school foodservice settings in a new publication in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health. The article debuts a proposed new instrument–Waste Audit for Sustainable Transitions and Evaluations (WASTE)–to help the research community better measure and understand food packaging waste in US school foodservice. The study was led by UC Berkeley Department of Environmental Science, Policy, and Management doctoral candidate Jessica Heiges in collaboration with Danielle Lee, Wendi Gosliner and Lorrene Ritchie from the UC Nutrition Policy Institute, Hannah Thompson and Kristine Madsen from the UC Berkeley School of Public Health, Kate O'Neill from the UC Berkeley Department of ESPM, Laura Vollmer from UC Agriculture and Natural Resources, and Kate Wobbekind from San Francisco Unified School District. This research was supported by the United States Department of Agriculture, National Institute of Food and Agriculture grant number 2020-68015-30736.

Focus Area Tags: Family, Food
Tags: Danielle Lee (26), Hannah Thompson (18), Lorrene Ritchie (105), peer reviewed publication (76), school meals (46), Wendi Gosliner (62)
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