A Cluster-Randomized Controlled Trial to assess the Impact of a Nutrition intervention On Dietary Behaviors among Early Care and Education Providers: the Create Healthy Futures Study

Authors

Dania Mofleh
Ru-Jye Chuang
Nalini Ranjit
Jill N Cox
Christine Anthony
Shreela V Sharma

Publication Date

8-1-2022

Journal

Preventive Medicine Reports

Abstract

Create Healthy Futures is a self-paced, web-based intervention on improving healthy eating behaviors among Early Care and Education (ECE) providers. We examined the impact of web-based Create Healthy Futures on diet quality measured by the Alternative Healthy Eating Index (AHEI) 2010, dietary behaviors, and related psychosocial and environmental factors among ECE providers. A cluster randomized controlled trial (CRCT) was implemented with baseline surveys administered from October 2019-January 2020, intervention implementation from April-May 2020, and post-intervention from May 2020-August 2020. Centered-based ECE programs under the Pennsylvania Head Start Association (n = 12) were recruited and randomized to intervention (n = 5) or comparison (n = 7) groups. A total of 186 ECE providers completed the post-intervention surveys (retention rate: 86.1%). At baseline, 31.5% of ECE providers were food insecure. Pre-to-post intervention demonstrated no significant within-or-between-group changes in the AHEI-2010 diet quality scores. ECE providers in the intervention group reported a significant decrease from baseline to post-intervention in the number of days eating out (aMD = -0.8, CI:-1.6, -0.1,

Keywords

Child-care providers, Diet quality, Early childhood education, Head start programs, Nutrition