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Food Assistance and Nutrition Projects
Evaluation of Participant-centered Nutrition Education in the Washington, DC, Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) Program
HSR is evaluating the training and implementation of Participant-centered Nutrition Education in the Washington, DC, WIC program. Four sites (two that are primarily African-American and two that are primarily Hispanic) will serve as intervention sites, while two sites will function as controls. Staff assessments will be made using surveys and interviews. Self-report surveys administered three times to the caregivers over a 4-month period will be used to measure client outcomes and satisfaction.
Arizona and Virginia Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) Funding Formula Development
HSR is conducting an assessment of the current WIC funding formulas used by Virginia and Arizona to provide funds to local WIC agencies. The HSR Team is assessing the strengths and weaknesses of each States funding formula, interviewing other States to assess potential features that should be included in a new funding formula, and developing a set of alternatives for consideration. Once a new formula is selected, HSR will train local WIC agencies on how the formula works and how to best take advantage of features and incentives.
Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) Program for Participant-Centered Nutrition Education
HSR recently has begun a project to assist 11 States in the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Food and Nutrition Service's Western Region with developing and implementing participant-centered nutrition education programs. HSR will develop and implement statewide assessments of program readiness to conduct participant-centered nutrition education, provide technical assistance in the implementation of pilot programs, and assist with the development of an evaluation tool to assess program acceptance and satisfaction, as well as outcomes.
Welfare Reform and Food Stamp Program Management
HSR was involved in a number of studies conducted by both the Food, Nutrition, and Consumer Services and the Economic Research Service as a result of the passage of Welfare Reform in the late 1990s. These included a study of State efforts to re-engineer their food stamp programs as a result of welfare reform (1998), a study of State use of funds to increase work slots for food stamp recipients (1998), participation in the 1999 study of program access and declining food stamp participation, and a study of State food stamp policy choices under welfare reform (1997). In addition, HSR conducted focus groups of elderly food stamp recipients and nonrecipients to examine factors that may pose a barrier to food stamp participation among the elderly.
Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) Program Coordination with Health Services
For the U.S. Department of Agriculture, HSR developed a best-practices handbook to promote and facilitate the coordination and integration of the WIC program to health care and social support services provided through Community/Migrant Health Centers (C/MHC) and Indian Health Services (IHS) clinics. The Handbook was designed to motivate WIC, C/MHC, and IHS providers to develop and implement concrete action plans to strengthen coordination. To conduct this work, HSR convened an expert panel; developed interview protocols and conducted interviews to assess 135 potential best-practice sites; and designed, wrote, and pretested the handbook drawing from cultural competency and communications/marketing expertise to increase the relevance and utility of the product.
HSR also is conducting an assessment of the impact of Medicaid managed care on WIC program operations. Included in this assessment is a survey of State WIC and Medicaid officials, and detailed case studies of the impact of Medicaid managed care on local WIC program operations, client referral practices, and access to primary care services by WIC clients.
Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) Program Management
HSR has conducted numerous evaluations of WIC program activities, including participating in the Food, Nutrition, and Consumer Services-sponsored national needs assessment of adolescents participating in the WIC program (1995) and an assessment of the use of WIC program data to improve program management conducted for Washington State (2001). In addition, HSR developed an initiative for the Economica Research Service to assess the feasibility of linking WIC, Medicaid, and vital records data to improve program evaluation activities (1999).
Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) Vendor Management
In 1997, HSR was awarded a contract by Food, Nutrition, and Consumer Services (FNS) to conduct a national study of WIC vendor management practices and their impact on program compliance at the store level. This involved conducting an assessment of State-level vendor management practices, conducting data from more than 1,800 grocery stores serving as WIC vendors, and analyzing data to determine the incidence and prevalence of vendor violations. In 2004, HSR was awarded a second contract by FNS to repeat this study. In addition, HSR was awarded a contract in 2001 to design a paperless vendor compliance system for the State of Virginia and in 1995 conducted a feasibility study for FNS linking WIC program data with store Universal Product Code/Linear Predictive Coding (UPC/LPC) scanning data to examine food purchasing patterns of WIC participants.
Nutrition Education
HSR has a rich history of work in this area. In 1995 and 1996, HSR was awarded two contracts from the Food, Nutrition, and Consumer Services (FNS) to provide technical assistance to and conduct an evaluation of State nutrition education cooperative agreements designed to promote the development of nutrition education networks. In addition, HSR was awarded contracts in 1997 and 2004 to conduct studies of State Food Stamp Nutrition Education programs. HSR also was awarded a cooperative agreement by the Economic Research Service in 2001 to examine whether food purchase data scanned by stores could be used to evaluate local Women, Infants, and Children nutrition education efforts. In 2004, HSR also was given a leadership role by FNS in preparing a literature review and conducting an expert panel meeting to determine if current research supports any relationship between food assistance programs and obesity.
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