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. 2015 Oct 7;11(4):344-353.
doi: 10.1177/1559827615607194. eCollection 2017 Jul-Aug.

What Social, Program, and Behavioral Factors Influence the Healthy Eating Index for EFNEP and SNAP-Ed Adult Participants?

Dave D Weatherspoon  1   2   3 , Steven R Miller  1   2   3 , Marie E Steele  1   2   3 , Cathy J Newkirk  1   2   3 , Olga Santiago  1   2   3 , Assa S Dembele  1   2   3 , Sharon L Hoerr  1   2   3
Affiliations

What Social, Program, and Behavioral Factors Influence the Healthy Eating Index for EFNEP and SNAP-Ed Adult Participants?

Dave D Weatherspoon et al. Am J Lifestyle Med. .

Abstract

The main objectives of this article were to determine the demographic factors, the program related factors and the behavioral factors that influence Michigan Expanded Food and Nutrition Education Program and Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program-Education outcomes. Secondarily, we sought to understand the trends and changes in Healthy Eating Index (HEI) scores across the differing baseline score groups. The data were collected by nutrition instructors in a pretest, posttest design to capture change in healthy eating habits through changes in HEI scores. The participants were all low-income program participants during the years of 2011 and 2012, living in Michigan. Findings show that eating habits improved most in households with weekly per-person income within $100 to $500, and with Caucasian females living in cities or suburbs. Improvements were also greater with those who took part in the Expanded Food and Nutrition Education Program, where the participants exhibited higher baseline frequency of planning meals before grocery shopping, comparing prices, and budgeting enough money for food and food related purchases. Overall, the average change in HEI scores increased by 2.3 points, however, the variability between the participants' changes was high, suggesting that more targeted program lessons might increase program efficacy, especially for those participants with high baseline HEI scores.

Keywords: EFNEP; Healthy Eating Index; SNAP-Ed; low-income adults; nutrition education.

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Conflict of interest statement

Declaration of Conflicting Interests: The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Figures

Figure 1.
Figure 1.
Number of people receiving Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits. Source: SNAP Activity Reports found at http://www.fns.usda.gov/pd/snap-reports#activity and http://www.fns.usda.gov/sites/default/files/pd/15SNAPpartPP.pdf
Figure 2.
Figure 2.
The Kolmogorov-Smirnov test comparison of the cleaned and full data distributions for the SNAP-Ed only exit HEI scores. HEI, Healthy Eating Index; SNAP-Ed, Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program–Education.
Figure 3.
Figure 3.
Healthy Eating Index (HEI) growth diagram with the participants grouped by baseline HEI. The mean HEI score at baseline and exit along with the change are shown for each group and the total. Data are for both programs.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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