Friday, July 29 - Sunday, July 31, 2022
Atlanta, GA
Altarum’s Food and Nutrition team provides comprehensive research, evaluation, and implementation solutions to organizations working to promote healthy lifestyles and reduce the risk of preventable chronic diseases. Altarum works with states and their respective implementing agencies to evaluate and optimize Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program-Education (SNAP-Ed) program, the nutrition education component of SNAP, which is the largest hunger safety net program in the United States.
Altarum at SNEB
At the upcoming Society for Nutrition Behavioral and Education (SNEB) Annual Conference, experts from the Altarum Food and Nutrition team will co-host a Dialogue Now session with Iowa Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS). Altarum and Iowa DHHS will facilitate a conversation about how State Nutrition Action Councils—SNAC for short—are addressing food and nutrition security across the country. SNACs are state-level collaboratives with representation from agencies that implement the United States Department of Agriculture Food and Nutrition Service programs including WIC, SNAP, SNAP-Ed, School Meals, and the Child and Adult Care Food Program. Diane Woloshin and Brenda Wolford, Senior Associates within Altarum’s Food and Nutrition focus area, are facilitating the discussion which will be Friday, July 29 at 2pm.
Also at the conference, Altarum’s Brenda Wolford will present a posterboard titled, “Assessment of Interactive Virtual Teaching Approaches Implemented by Maine SNAP-Ed in Response to the Pandemic.” As the COVID-19 pandemic continued to present barriers to in-person teaching in FFY 2021, virtual teaching continued to be of high interest to Maine SNAP-Ed. The Maine SNAP-Ed implementing agency, the University of New England (UNE), supported Nutrition Educators in adapting their lessons for a virtual environment. Nutrition Educators coordinated with community partners to schedule virtual lessons and used a variety of approaches and technologies to adapt existing curricula and materials. Julia Fantacone, MPP, PMP, Brenda Wolford, MS, RD, and Brent Walker, MS, RD, of Altarum’s Food and Nutrition team examined a variety of virtual teaching modalities implemented by Maine SNAP-Ed Nutrition Educators.
The Society for Nutrition Education and Behavior Annual Conference is the premier event for nutrition education professionals from around the world. Attendees have the opportunity to interface with influential nutritionists from extension, public health, government, academia, industry, and community settings.
Connect with Altarum
As you prepare SNAP-Ed plans for the upcoming year, Altarum can be a powerful ally, both locally and statewide. Our Food and Nutrition services are designed to assist SNAP-Ed agencies at all stages of development, including program planning, implementation, and evaluation. Altarum has a strong history of providing states and implementing agencies with technical assistance to strengthen multilayered nutrition interventions, training on designing and implementing effective policy, systems, and environmental change strategies, transitioning formative research into action plans, and evaluating program outcomes.
To learn more about our work to support the health of women and children, including how Altarum has helped state WIC programs transition to participant-centered services and helped states evaluate school-based nutrition education programs, contact Karah Mantinan at karah.mantinan@altarum.org.
Update: Post-Conference Summary
The 2022 conference highlighted many innovative solutions that technology has offered in response to the pandemic in a variety of different areas – policies, food systems, emergency food distribution, health care, individual learning and behaviors, equity and inclusion, and program development and delivery.
The federal government’s response to the pandemic also included many important technology-driven solutions (e.g., SNAP online grocery shopping and delivery, telehealth or remote services through WIC, CACFP online provider trainings).
We are eager to learn more about how the USDA will engage partners and stakeholders in an effort to increase nutrition security for all Americans through the upcoming White House Conference on Hunger, Nutrition and Health to be hosted in September 2022.
For those who attended the Dialogue Now session on SNACs, here are the summary notes.