Associations between Changes in Food Acquisition Behaviors, Dietary Intake, and Bodyweight during the COVID-19 Pandemic among Low-Income Parents in California.

COVID-19 disrupted food access, potentially increasing nutritional risk and health inequities. This study aimed to describe and assess associations between changes in food/meal acquisition behaviors and relative changes in dietary intake and bodyweight from before to during the pandemic. Low-income parents (n = 1090) reported these changes by online survey in April-August 2021.

Parent perceptions of changes in eating behavior during COVID-19 of school-aged children from Supplemental Assistance Program Education (SNAP-Ed) eligible households in California.

This cross-sectional study examined the associations between parent-reported, perceptions of changes in school-aged children's (ages 5-18) school meal participation, household cooking, fast food consumption, dietary intake, and weight during the COVID-19 pandemic. Respondents with low-income and school-aged children (n = 1040) were enrolled using quota sampling to approximate the distribution of low-income households and race/ethnicity among California residents who completed an on-line questionnaire developed by the authors. Adjusted multinomial models examined associations between parent-reported changes in school meal participation and time spent cooking, with parent-reported changes in child diet and body weight during COVID-19 (from before March 2020 to January-March 2021).

School meal access and changes in meal participation during COVID-19 school closures: A stratified random sample of CalFresh Healthy Living Eligible school districts in California.

The National School Lunch and School Breakfast programs are a nutrition safety net for millions of children in the United States, particularly children in households with lower incomes. During Spring 2020 COVID-19 school closures, schools served school meals through the Summer Meal Programs. Despite efforts to increase access, meal participation declined and food insecurity increased.

The association between sugar-sweetened beverage availability in school vending machines and school staff sugar-sweetened beverage consumption.

Reducing sugar-sweetened beverage (SSB) consumption is a leading strategy to help combat high rates of adult obesity and overweight. Regulating SSB sales in schools has reduced access among youth. However, current federal school nutrition standards are focused on student rather than staff environments (i.

Association between community characteristics and implementation of community programmes and policies addressing childhood obesity: the Healthy Communities Study.

Background: Little is known about whether characteristics of communities are associated with differential implementation of community programmes and policies to promote physical activity and healthy eating. This study examines associations between community characteristics (e.g.

Improvements in Physical Activity Opportunities: Results From a Community-Based Family Child Care Intervention.

Introduction: Reaching preschool-aged children to establish healthy lifestyle habits, including physical activity, is an important component of obesity prevention efforts. However, few studies have examined family child care homes where nearly 1 million children receive care.

Study Design: A pre- and post-intervention evaluation without a control group was conducted to evaluate what changes occurred in family child care homes that participated in the Healthy Eating and Active Living project, a multicomponent obesity prevention initiative, focused on community-driven policy and environmental change in neighborhoods within Kaiser Permanente service areas.

Changes in Nutrition Policies and Dietary Intake in Child Care Homes Participating in Healthy Eating and Active Living Initiative.

Introduction: From 2012 to 2014, a total of 17 family child care homes participated in a multisector, community-wide initiative to prevent obesity. Strategies included staff workshops, materials, site visits, and technical assistance regarding development and implementation of nutrition policies. The purpose of the evaluation was to examine the impact of the initiative on family child care home nutrition-related policies and practices and child dietary intake.

Changes in Consumer Purchases in Stores Participating in an Obesity Prevention Initiative.

Introduction: From 2011 to 2014, small stores in three communities participated in a community-wide obesity prevention initiative. The study aimed to determine how participation in the initiative influenced store environments and consumer purchases.

Study Design: Pre- and post-intervention without control.

A Community-Level Initiative to Prevent Obesity: Results From Kaiser Permanente's Healthy Eating Active Living Zones Initiative in California.

Introduction: A growing number of health systems are leading health promotion efforts in their wider communities. What impact are these efforts having on health behaviors and ultimately health status? This paper presents evaluation results from the place-based Kaiser Permanente Healthy Eating Active Living Zones obesity prevention initiative, implemented in 2011-2015 in 12 low-income communities in Kaiser Permanente's Northern and Southern California Regions.

Methods: The Healthy Eating Active Living Zones design targeted places and people through policy, environmental, and programmatic strategies.

Using Population Dose to Evaluate Community-level Health Initiatives.

Unlabelled: Successful community-level health initiatives require implementing an effective portfolio of strategies and understanding their impact on population health. These factors are complicated by the heterogeneity of overlapping multicomponent strategies and availability of population-level data that align with the initiatives. To address these complexities, the population dose methodology was developed for planning and evaluating multicomponent community initiatives.

Developing an index of dose of exposure to early childhood obesity community interventions.

The recognition of the role of the environment in contributing to the obesity epidemic has led to increasing efforts to address obesity through environmental or place-based approaches in the past decade. This has challenged the use of the quasi-experimental design for evaluating community interventions. The objective of this study is to describe the development of an index of dose of exposure to community interventions that impact early childhood obesity.

Using photovoice as a participatory evaluation tool in Kaiser Permanente's Community Health Initiative.

Photovoice is a community-based participatory research method that provides participants who traditionally have little voice in community policy decisions, with training in photography, ethics, critical dialogue, photo captioning, and policy advocacy. Photovoice has been used primarily as a needs assessment and advocacy tool and only rarely as a pre-/postintervention evaluation method. This article describes the use of Photovoice as a participatory evaluation method in the Community Health Initiative, a 6-year, multisite community-based obesity prevention initiative, sponsored by Kaiser Permanente.

Kaiser Permanente's Community Health Initiative in Northern California: evaluation findings and lessons learned.

Purpose: To describe the evaluation findings and lessons learned from the Kaiser Permanente Healthy Eating Active Living-Community Health Initiative.

Design: Mixed methods design: qualitative case studies combined with pre/post population-level food and physical activity measures, using matched comparison schools for youth surveys.

Setting: Three low-income communities in Northern California (combined population 129,260).

Approaches to measuring the extent and impact of environmental change in three California community-level obesity prevention initiatives.

Despite growing support among public health researchers and practitioners for environmental approaches to obesity prevention, there is a lack of empirical evidence from intervention studies showing a favorable impact of either increased healthy food availability on healthy eating or changes in the built environment on physical activity. It is therefore critical that we carefully evaluate initiatives targeting the community environment to expand the evidence base for environmental interventions. We describe the approaches used to measure the extent and impact of environmental change in 3 community-level obesity-prevention initiatives in California.

The Kaiser Permanente Community Health Initiative: overview and evaluation design.

We provide an overview of the Kaiser Permanente Community Health Initiative--created in 2003 to promote obesity-prevention policy and environmental change in communities served by Kaiser Permanente-and describe the design for evaluating the initiative. The Initiative focuses on 3 ethnically diverse northern California communities that range in size from 37,000 to 52,000 residents. The evaluation assesses impact by measuring intermediate outcomes and conducting pre- and posttracking of population-level measures of physical activity, nutrition, and overweight.

Exposure to a comprehensive school intervention increases vegetable consumption.

Purpose: The current epidemic of childhood overweight has launched a variety of school-based efforts to address the issue. This study reports on the first 2 years of a 3-year evaluation of one school district's comprehensive intervention to transform school foodservices and dining experiences, offer cooking and gardening programs, and integrate nutrition and food systems concepts into the academic curriculum.

Methods: This 3-year prospective study enrolled 327 4th and 5th graders in a mid-sized school district in California, and followed them into middle school.