Nutrition Policy Research

Reports

• "Characteristics and Dietary Patterns of Healthy and Less-Healthy Eaters in the Low-Income Population." Yonatan Ben-Shalom, Mary Kay Fox, and P.K. Newby, February 2012. This report reviews sociodemographic and dietary characteristics of individuals in each group and describes their distinct dietary patterns, as identified through a cluster analysis of dietary intake. Individuals were classified as healthy or less-healthy eaters according to their scores on the Healthy Eating Index (HEI) 2005. Among adults, characteristics associated with healthy eating include being female, older than 60, and foreign-born. Among children, they include being ages 2 to 5 and living in a household with a foreign-born individual. In addition, both child and adult healthy eaters were more likely than less-healthy eaters to eat breakfast, eat three meals daily, and consume fruits and vegetables. Report Summary.
• "Addressing Child Hunger and Obesity in Indian Country: Report to Congress." Anne Gordon and Vanessa Oddo, January 2012. This report summarizes current statistics on hunger, obesity, and type II diabetes among children living in Indian Country, American Indian reservations, and other tribal lands. It offers comparable statistics for the general population. It also describes how the U.S. Department of Agriculture's nutrition programs serve children in Indian Country and how provisions of the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010 and other recent initiatives might improve these services. Executive Summary.
• "Effects of the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC): A Review of Recent Research." Silvie Colman, Ira P. Nichols-Barrer, Julie E. Redline, Barbara L. Devaney, Sara V. Ansell, and Ted Joyce, January 2012. This report summarizes research published since the last major review, completed in 2004, on the impact of the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children (WIC) on beneficiaries' health, health-related behaviors, and utilization of health care. It includes research published between 2002 and 2010 as well as unpublished research completed between 1999 and 2010. Executive Summary.
• "Promoting Public Benefits Access Through Web-Based Tools and Outreach." Jacqueline Kauff, Emily Sama-Miller, Gretchen Rowe, Cicely Thomas, and Libby Makowsky, December 2011. This report summarizes existing web-based benefits access efforts and presents a small subset of case studies of efforts identified through a national scan. It focuses on issues related to the design and management of web-based tools; technology options and requirements; financial considerations; outputs and outcomes; and issues for sustaining, expanding, and replicating existing web-based tools.
• "Characteristics of Eligible Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program Households with Elderly Individuals." Joshua Leftin, October 2011. The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) participation rate for households with elderly individuals has historically been lower than that for other household types. This report compares characteristics of elderly households participating in SNAP with those of elderly households not participating, and analyzes characteristics associated with higher or lower participation rates. It also assesses quality of data used to analyze participation and eligibility.
• "Direct Certification in the National School Lunch Program: State Implementation Progress School Year 2010-2011." Report to Congress. Quinn Moore, Kevin Conway, and Brandon Kyler, October 2011. This report to Congress assesses the effectiveness of state and local efforts to directly certify children for free school meals without the need for household applications by using data from other means-tested programs. At the start of the 2010-2011 school year, 1.9 million more children were directly certified for free school meals than in the previous year. Summary.

Journal Articles

• "Publishing Nutrition Research: A Review of Multivariate Techniques Part 2: Analysis of Variance." Jeffrey E. Harris, Patricia M. Sheean, Philip M. Gleason, Barbara Bruemmer, and Carol Boushey. Journal of the American Dietetic Association, January 2012 (subscription required).This article is the eighth in a series exploring the importance of research design, statistical analysis, and epidemiology in nutrition and dietetics research. It is the second article in that series focused on multivariate statistical analytical techniques. This review examines the statistical technique of analysis of variance (ANOVA), from its simplest form to multivariate applications. It addresses all these applications and includes hypothetical and real examples from the field of dietetics.
• "Publishing Nutrition Research: A Review of Multivariate Techniques Part 1." Patricia M. Sheean, Barbara Bruemmer, Philip Gleason, Jeffrey Harris, Carol Boushey, and Linda Van Horn. Journal of the American Dietetic Association, January 2011 (subscription required). This article is the seventh in a series reviewing the importance of research design, analyses, and epidemiology in the conduct, interpretation, and publication of nutrition research. This review introduces the more commonly used multivariate techniques including linear and logistic regression (simple and multiple) and survival analyses (Kaplan Meier plots and Cox regression).
• Findings from the Feeding Infants and Toddlers Study (FITS) 2008, a follow up to Mathematica’s groundbreaking 2002 study, are presented in a special supplement to the December issue of the Journal of the American Dietetic Association (subscription required). Senior fellow Ronette Briefel serves as guest editor.

  "New Findings from the Feeding Infants and Toddlers Study: Data to Inform Action." Ronette R. Briefel. Journal of the American Dietetic Association, December 2010. This guest editorial describes findings from FITS 2008, places the results in the context of other large-scale nutrition studies for infants and toddlers, and examines the potential impact on policymakers’ efforts to address childhood obesity.

  "The Feeding Infants and Toddlers Study 2008: Study Design and Methods." Ronette R. Briefel, Laura M. Kalb, Elizabeth Condon, Denise M. Deming, Nancy A. Clusen, Mary Kay Fox, Lisa Harnack, Erin Gemmill, Mary Stevens, Kathleen C. Reidy. Journal of the American Dietetic Association, December 2010. This article describes the study design, data collection methods, 24-hour dietary recall protocol, and sample characteristics.

  "Food Consumption Patterns of Young Preschoolers: Are They Starting Off On the Right Path?" Mary Kay Fox. Journal of the American Dietetic Association, December 2010. This article describes the dietary habits of 2- and 3-year-olds. Almost three-quarters of children consumed fruit, and about 70 percent ate vegetables at least once in a day. However, french fries and other fried potatoes were the most commonly eaten vegetable, and about 85 percent consumed some type of sweetened beverage, dessert, sweet, or salty snack in a day.

  "Nutrient Intakes of US Infants, Toddlers, and Preschoolers Meet or Exceed Dietary Reference Intakes." Nancy F. Butte, Mary Kay Fox, Ronette R. Briefel, Anna Maria Siega-Riz, Johanna T. Dwyer, Denise M. Deming, and Kathleen C. Reidy. Journal of the American Dietetic Association, December 2010. This article notes that nutrient intakes are adequate for the majority of U.S. infants, toddlers, and preschoolers, except for a small but important proportion of infants at risk for inadequate iron and zinc intakes.

  "Food Consumption Patterns of Infants and Toddlers: Where Are We Now?" Anna Maria Siega-Riz, Denise M. Deming, Kathleen C. Reidy, Mary Kay Fox, Elizabeth Condon, and Ronette R. Briefel. Journal of the American Dietetic Association, December 2010. Compared to the 2002 FITS study, FITS 2008 shows a higher percentage of infants are being breastfed, and fewer infants are consuming infant cereal. The percentage of infants and toddlers consuming desserts or candy, sweetened beverages, and salty snacks was significantly lower in 2008; however, fruit and vegetable consumption also remains lower than desired.

Issue Briefs

• "Reaching Those in Need: State Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program Participation Rates in 2009." Karen E. Cunnyngham, December 2011. This document presents estimates of Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) participation rates for all eligible people and for the working poor, by state, for fiscal year 2009. Eighteen states had rates that were significantly higher (in a statistical sense) than the national rate, and 12 states had rates that were significantly lower. Among the regions, the Midwest Region had the highest participation rate—82 percent—a rate significantly higher than all of the other regions. The Western Region's participation rate of 63 percent was significantly lower than the rates for all of the other regions.
• "Who Picks Up the Tab? Reducing Payment Errors in School Nutrition Programs." Trends in Nutrition Policy Issue Brief #3. Michael Ponza, Philip Gleason, Lara Hulsey, and Quinn Moore, February 2009. Over the years, concern has mounted that many of the more than 26 million children certified to receive free or reduced-price meals may be ineligible for these benefits. This brief looks at the issue of reducing payment errors in the National School Lunch Program (NSLP) and the School Breakfast Program (SBP). Mathematica’s study, the first effort to quantify the amounts and rates of improper payments in these programs, looked at two types of certification errors: (1) household reporting errors, which occur when households misreport information on their applications; and (2) administrative errors, which occur when districts make mistakes in processing applications, determining eligibility, or recording certification status. For all students who applied for school meal benefits or were directly certified, about one in five were either incorrectly deemed eligible for the level of benefits they were approved for, or erroneously denied benefits. In addition, among those certified in error, overcertification was about twice as likely as undercertification. For both the NSLP and SBP, about nine percent of total meal reimbursements were erroneous because of certification error.
• "I Am Moving, I Am Learning (IM/IL): Early Findings from the Implementation of an Obesity Prevention Enhancement in Head Start Region III." Daniel Finkelstein, Robert Whitaker, Elaine Hill, Mary Kay Fox, Linda Mendenko, and Kimberly Boller, December 2008. I Am Moving, I Am Learning is a Head Start program enhancement for integrating obesity prevention activities into daily practices. This research brief, based on Mathematica’s interim report, documents the findings from a survey of 53 Head Start programs that participated in training in Region III in spring of 2006. It describes early implementation of IM/IL, including successes, challenges, and sustainability.

Other

• "Planning a WIC Research Agenda." Barbara Devaney, January 2011. This report summarizes workshop presentations and discussions by the Institute of Medicine, Food and Nutrition Board Committee, reviewing research on the Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) food packages, the third-largest food assistance program administered by the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
• "WIC Turns 35: Program Effectiveness and Future Directions." Barbara Devaney. In Childhood Programs and Practices in the First Decade of Life, edited by Arthur J. Reynolds, Arthur J. Rolnick, Michelle M. Englund, and Judy A. Temple, August 2010. The author reviews the history of the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC), describes WIC eligibility and benefits, presents findings from major WIC evaluations, and offers thoughts on the future WIC research agenda.
• "Developing and Evaluating Methods for Using American Community Survey Data to Support the School Meals Program: Interim Report." Allen Schirm and Nancy Kirkendall, editors, 2010. This monograph describes the planned work of a National Research Council expert panel, chaired by Allen Schirm, to study technical and operational issues in using data from the American Community Survey—the continuous survey that has replaced the decennial census long-form survey—to obtain estimates of students eligible for free and reduced-price school meals. These estimates could be used to determine federal reimbursements to districts for schools that eliminate program applications and provide free meals to all students.