Do sugar warning labels influence parents' selection of a labeled snack for their children? A randomized trial in a virtual convenience store.

Despite growing evidence that warning labels reduce purchases of sugary drinks, less is known about warnings' impact on purchases of sugary snacks. This paper aimed to experimentally test whether a front-of-package label warning about high sugar content ("sugar warning label") would reduce parents' likelihood of selecting a labeled snack versus a non-labeled snack for their child in a food store setting. Participants (n = 2,219 parents of at least one child aged 1-5y) were recruited via an online panel and asked to complete a shopping task in a virtual convenience store.

Nutrition-related claims lead parents to choose less healthy drinks for young children: a randomized trial in a virtual convenience store.

Background: Consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages, including fruit drinks (i.e., fruit-flavored drinks containing added sugar), contributes to childhood obesity.

Lessons From the Feasibility Testing of a Parent-Focused, Life Skills-Based Intervention to Prevent Obesity in Preschoolers From Underserved Families.

This article describes lessons from the feasibility testing of a parent-focused, life skills-based intervention to promote healthy weight in 58 low-income children aged 2 to 5 years. This intervention was feasible and acceptable, with a potential to impact child weight and diet (calories) and parental quality of life (QOL). The group delivery approach through a partnering organization (Head Start) was a more efficient way to reach/engage parents.

Evaluation of an Electronic Health Record Referral Process to Enhance Participation in Evidence-Based Arthritis Interventions.

Purpose And Objectives: Effective community-based programs to manage arthritis exist, but many adults with arthritis are unaware that these programs are available in their communities. An electronic health record (EHR) referral intervention was designed to strengthen health care and community-based partnerships and increase participation in these arthritis programs. The intervention was developed in response to a national effort that aimed to enhance the health, wellness, and quality of life for people with arthritis by increasing the awareness and availability of, and participation in arthritis-appropriate evidence-based interventions.

Food Skills Education and Low-Income Adults' Healthy Food Choices.

Background: The Cooking Matters food skills education program equips low-income families with the skills and knowledge to shop for and cook healthy meals within budget and time constraints.

Aims: To explore whether participation in Cooking Matters is associated with healthier food choices using a 6-item scale, comprised of a variety of food categories.

Methods: Cooking Matters participants (n = 332) and a comparison group (n = 336) completed surveys at baseline, 3-, and 6-month follow-up.

Foods for Health: An Integrated Social Medical Approach to Food Insecurity Among Patients With Diabetes.

Purpose: Examine a clinic-based approach to improve food security and glycemic control among patients with diabetes.

Design: One-group repeated-measures design.

Setting: Federally Qualified Health Centers in a large Midwest city.

Low-Income Parents' Use of Front-of-Package Nutrition Labels in a Virtual Supermarket.

Objective: To examine the impact front-of-package nutrition labels (FOPLs) have on decision-making abilities among low-income parents in a virtual supermarket.

Design: A 4-by-2 experimental design with 3 FOPLs (summary, nutrient-specific, hybrid) and a no-FOPL comparison. Within the FOPL condition, participants either shopped with a time limit (10 minutes) or with no time limit.

Online grocery shopping: promise and pitfalls for healthier food and beverage purchases.

Objectives: (i) To determine the current state of online grocery shopping, including individuals' motivations for shopping for groceries online and types of foods purchased; and (ii) to identify the potential promise and pitfalls that online grocery shopping may offer in relation to food and beverage purchases.

Design: PubMed, ABI/INFORM and Google Scholar were searched to identify published research.

Setting: To be included, studies must have been published between 2007 and 2017 in English, based in the USA or Europe (including the UK), and focused on: (i) motivations for online grocery shopping; (ii) the cognitive/psychosocial domain; and (iii) the community or neighbourhood food environment domain.

Interrater Reliability of a Field-Based Preschool Movement Skills Assessment.

Objective: To determine the interrater reliability of the Preschool Movement Assessment (PMA), a unique field-based assessment tool for use by early childhood professionals in preschool settings.

Methods: A total of 123 preschool children, aged 3-5years, were assessed by 6 trained raters using the PMA tool in an intervention. Interrater agreement on individual items of the PMA was determined using the kappa (κ) and intraclass correlation coefficient statistics.

School health implementation tools: a mixed methods evaluation of factors influencing their use.

Background: The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) develops tools to support implementation of evidence-based interventions for school health.

Cooking Matters for Adults Improves Food Resource Management Skills and Self-confidence Among Low-Income Participants.

Objective: Determine the impact of Cooking Matters for Adults (CM) on food resource management (FRM) skills and self-confidence 6 months after course completion.

Design: Quasi-experimental design with nonequivalent comparison group and 6-month follow-up.

Setting: Cooking Matters for Adults programs in CA, CO, ME, MA, MI, and OR.

Developing a Tool to Assess the Capacity of Out-of-School Time Program Providers to Implement Policy, Systems, and Environmental Change.

Background: Little is known about public health practitioners' capacity to change policies, systems, or environments (PSEs), in part due to the absence of measures. To address this need, we partnered with the Alliance for a Healthier Generation (Alliance) to develop and test a theory-derived measure of the capacity of out-of-school time program providers to improve students' level of nutrition and physical activity through changes in PSEs.

Community Context: The measure was developed and tested through an engaged partnership with staff working on the Alliance's Healthy Out-of-School Time (HOST) Initiative.

Adding a Social Marketing Campaign to a School-Based Nutrition Education Program Improves Children's Dietary Intake: A Quasi-Experimental Study.

Background: Evidence supports the use of social marketing campaigns to improve nutrition knowledge and reinforce the effects of nutrition education programs. However, the additional effects of parent-focused social marketing with nutrition education have received little attention.

Objective: Our aim was to assess the impact of the Iowa Nutrition Network's school-based nutrition education program (Building and Strengthening Iowa Community Support for Nutrition and Physical Activity [BASICS]) and the benefits of adding a multichannel social marketing intervention (BASICS Plus) to increase parent-directed communication.

Eat Smart, Live Strong intervention increases fruit and vegetable consumption among low-income older adults.

This study evaluated the impact of a four-session interactive nutrition education program-Eat Smart, Live Strong (ESLS)-on the consumption of fruit and vegetables by low-income older adults. A pre-post quasi-experimental design study was conducted with a longitudinal sample of 614 low-income Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) participants and those eligible for SNAP, aged 60 to 80 years, in 17 intervention and 16 comparison senior centers in Michigan. The study compared participants' self-reports of their consumption of fruit and vegetables using a modified version of the University of California Cooperative Extension Food Behavior Checklist.

Systematic review of health branding: growth of a promising practice.

Brands are marketing tools that create mental representations in the minds of consumers about products, services, and organizations. Brands create schema that help consumers decide whether to initiate or continue use of a product or service. Health branding determines behavioral choice by building consumer relationships and identification with health behaviors and their benefits.

Preventing and controlling foodborne disease in commercial and institutional food service settings: a systematic review of published intervention studies.

This study reviews the current literature on behavioral and environmental food safety interventions conducted in commercial and institutional food service settings. A systematic search of the published literature yielded 268 candidate articles, from which a set of 23 articles reporting intervention outcomes was retained for evaluation. A categorization of measured outcomes is reported; studies addressed multiple outcomes ranging from knowledge, attitudes, and behavior of personal hygiene and food safety to management practices and disease rates and outbreaks.

The relationship between amount of soda consumed and intention to reduce soda consumption among adults exposed to the Choose Health LA 'Sugar Pack' health marketing campaign.

Objective: To examine behavioural intention to reduce soda consumption after exposure to the Choose Health LA 'Sugar Pack' campaign in Los Angeles County, California, USA.

Design: A cross-sectional street-intercept survey was conducted to assess knowledge, attitudes, health behaviours and behavioural intentions after exposure to the 'Sugar Pack' campaign. A multivariable regression analysis was performed to examine the relationships between the amount of soda consumed and self-reported intention to reduce consumption of non-diet soda among adults who saw the campaign.

Evaluating the Impact of Six Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program Education Interventions on Children's At-Home Diets.

Background: Nutrition education in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program Education (SNAP-Ed) is designed to promote healthy eating behaviors in a low-income target population.

Purpose: To evaluate the effectiveness of six SNAP-Ed interventions delivered in child care centers or elementary school settings in increasing participating children's at-home fruit and vegetable (F/V) consumption by 0.3 cups per day and use of fat-free or low-fat milk instead of whole or reduced-fat milk during the prior week.

Nutrition-education program improves preschoolers' at-home diet: a group randomized trial.

Objective: This study evaluated whether a nutrition-education program in child-care centers improved children's at-home daily consumption of fruits and vegetables, at-home use of low-fat/fat-free milk, and other at-home dietary behaviors.

Materials And Methods: Twenty-four child-care centers serving low-income families were matched by region, type, and size, and then randomly assigned to either an intervention or control condition. In the 12 intervention centers, registered dietitian nutritionists provided nutrition education to children and parents separately during a 6- to 10-week period.

Increasing the degrees of freedom in future group randomized trials: the df * method revisited.

Background: This article revisits an article published in Evaluation Review in 2005 on sample size estimation and power analysis for group-randomized trials. With help from a careful reader, we learned of an important error in the spreadsheet used to perform the calculations and generate the results presented in that article. As we studied the spreadsheet, we discovered other minor errors.

Repeated exposure to media messages encouraging parent-child communication about sex: differential trajectories for mothers and fathers.

Purpose: To examine changes in parent-child communication related to sexual behavior after exposure to public health messages.

Design: Randomized, controlled trial that was part of precampaign message testing.

Setting: Exposure occurred online or through DVDs mailed to participants and viewed on their personal computers.

Perceptions of the food shopping environment are associated with greater consumption of fruits and vegetables.

Objective: The present study examined whether characteristics such as quality, selection and convenience are associated with dietary intake of fruits and vegetables independent of perceived costs in an inner-city, low-income population.

Design: Secondary analysis of baseline data from a social marketing intervention designed to change household dietary practices among parents of 3- to 7-year-old children.

Setting: A community sample drawn from six low-income, primarily minority neighbourhoods in Chicago, IL, USA.

Social cognitive mediators of parent-child sexual communication.

Objective: To test a social cognitive behavior change model and identify mediators of the effects of the Parents Speak Up National Campaign (PSUNC) on parent-child sexual communication.

Methods: Investigators used 5 waves of data from an online randomized controlled trial. Latent variables were developed based on item response theory and confirmatory factor analysis.

Impact of a parent-child sexual communication campaign: results from a controlled efficacy trial of parents.

Background: Prior research supports the notion that parents have the ability to influence their children's decisions regarding sexual behavior. Yet parent-based approaches to curbing teen pregnancy and STDs have been relatively unexplored. The Parents Speak Up National Campaign (PSUNC) is a multimedia campaign that attempts to fill this void by targeting parents of teens to encourage parent-child communication about waiting to have sex.