Healthy Eating Research RFP

Overview

Introduction & Purpose

As part of its commitment to building a national Culture of Health, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) seeks ideas that advance health, equity, and wellbeing. Healthy Eating Research (HER) supports this goal through improving diet quality and nutrition for all Americans, addressing nutrition disparities, and reducing food and nutrition insecurity. HER’s mission is to support and disseminate research on policy, systems, and environmental strategies that promote healthy eating among children and families and advance nutrition security and health equity.

The purpose of this call for proposals (CFP) is to generate evidence on supportive family policies and programs that have strong potential to impact equitable access to nutritious food in communities, nutrition security, diet quality, and improved nutrition and health outcomes. We are especially interested in strategies to improve health outcomes for families with lower incomes and/or racially and ethnically diverse populations experiencing higher rates of diet related chronic disease and/or health disparities. Findings will be used to guide and inform decisionmaking about policy and system changes that can advance nutrition equity and improve health.

Through this CFP, we seek to learn what works (or not) and why; who benefits the most from these policies and programs; and whether disparities are reduced. We are interested in solution oriented research that focuses on policy, systems, and environmental (PSE) change at the national, state, local, and tribal levels. The CFP provides opportunities to develop and test innovative approaches to increasing access to healthy foods, such as through child nutrition programs; innovations in technologies; expanding program outreach and eligibility; simplifying program enrollment processes; identifying ways to improve equity within nutrition assistance programs; building the evidence base for these programs’ impacts on diet quality, food insecurity, nutrition, weight, and health; and areas for improvements and scalability.

HER issues CFPs to solicit scientifically rigorous, solution-oriented proposals from investigators representing diverse disciplines and backgrounds.

Targeted Age Groups; Priority Populations

The target population is children (ages birth to 18) and families in the United States, with high priority on those who are at highest risk for poor nutrition, specifically lower income families and racially and ethnically diverse populations (e.g., Black, Latino/a, American Indian/Alaska Native, Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander).

Priority Topic Areas

This CFP focuses on five priority topic areas related to supportive family policies and programs to improve nutrition and health:

* Child nutrition programs
* Child nutrition programs help ensure that children receive nutritious food, including meals and snacks that promote their health, growth, and school success.
* Through this CFP, there is an opportunity to examine strategies to expand the reach and impact of these programs.
* Strategies may include:
* innovations in technologies;
* expanding program outreach and eligibility;
* simplifying program enrollment processes;
* identifying ways to improve equity within nutrition assistance programs;
* building the evidence base for these programs’ impacts on diet quality, food insecurity, nutrition, weight, and health; and
* areas for improvements and scalability.

* Food access and hunger relief programs
* Equitable access to healthy and affordable food in the U.S. is a major public health concern

* Efforts to promote healthy choices in food banks and food pantries include:
* the creation and adoption of formal nutrition policies,
* cultivation of relationships with food donors who can donate healthier products, and
* investment in capacity to store and display healthier food items
* This CFP provides opportunities to develop and test innovative approaches to increasing access to healthy foods (including via improving the food retail
environment); to conduct natural experiments and/or test interventions; and evaluate programs aimed at improving nutrition security and diet quality for children and families, especially among understudied populations.

* Structural inequities impacting access to healthy and affordable foods
* Structural barriers, such as racism and classism, involve processes by which interconnected political, economic, social, and ideological systems generate and maintain unequal access to opportunities and resources.
* This CFP would allow community academic partnerships to evaluate community powered initiatives, develop interventions to address root causes of food insecurity or obesity, and co design and test innovative models.
* There is also a need to better understand the structural inequities and forces that have shaped contemporary food access and food insecurity in low income areas and communities of color and approaches to mitigate these forces.

* Social and economic programs (nonfood policies)
* Social and economic inequities drive child nutrition disparities.
* To date, little research has been conducted on the relationships and interconnections between nutrition, weight, and food and nutrition security in families and policies related to poverty reduction, family income supports, economic resources, housing assistance, or other family supportive policies.
* Some examples of these policies and programs include:
* financial payments to families;
* income assistance and support programs;
* housing assistance or housing security programs; and
* increased access to social services
* We are also interested in exploring other supportive family policies (e.g., paid family leave, flexible work schedules, home visiting programs, breastfeeding support) that impact parental and child health and nutrition outcomes.

* Emerging topics
* This category is intended to allow for exploration of new and emerging public health topics impacting nutrition security, food security, and/or health equity and innovative policies, systems, and environmental strategies to support the optimal health of children and families.
* Examples of potential topics could include:
* applying a prevention (rather than clinical) lens to food in medicine initiatives;
* identifying novel ways to utilize Medicaid or CHIP programs to optimize families’ nutrition and food security;
* examining the impacts of climate change on food systems and access to healthy foods;
* examining the implications of new obesity/weight loss drugs for public health and prevention initiatives, especially related to prevention work with adolescents and young children;
* addressing unique issues impacting the health and wellbeing of rural communities;
* examining issues related to public health datasets;
* development of new measures and metrics for measuring progress, and others.

Total Awards

Each award will be up to a maximum of $275,000 with a total of up to $2.5 million to be funded through this CFP. We encourage proposals that request lower budget amounts. Awards will be a maximum of 24 months in duration. We encourage proposals that request shorter periods (e.g., 12-18 months)

Eligibility

_You can learn more about this opportunity by visiting the funder's website._

* Applicant organizations must be based in the United States or its territories.
* Awards will be made to organizations, not to individuals.

Ineligibility

* Funds may not be used to:
* support clinical trials of unapproved drugs or devices,
* to construct or renovate facilities,
* for lobbying,
* for political activities, or
* as a substitute for funds currently being used to support similar activities

* This program does not fund demonstration projects.
* Healthy Eating Research does not fund dissertation studies currently.