UNE's Pamela Bruno publishes brief in Journal for Nutrition Education and Behavior

Pamela Bruno, M.P.H., senior research associate in the Center for Excellence in Public Health (CEPH), has co-authored a research brief published in December in the Journal for Nutrition Education and Behavior (JNEB).

The publication, “The SNAP-Ed Evaluation Framework: Nationwide Uptake and Implications for Nutrition Education Practice, Policy, and Research,” provides the first census of national use of a framework designed to evaluate the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program Education (SNAP-Ed) program.

SNAP-Ed is the largest and most diverse community nutrition and obesity prevention program in the country and is administered in Maine by UNE’s CEPH through a contract with the Office for Family Independence at the Maine Department of Health and Human Services.

The research brief summarizes Bruno’s efforts with national colleagues to assess the baseline uptake of the framework across all SNAP-Ed implementing agencies in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, Guam, and the U.S. Virgin Islands. Introduced in 2017, framework includes 51 indicators designed to provide outcomes for each level of the Social Ecological Model and at the population level.

The research brief quantifies the initial uptake of the framework to showcase the breadth and depth of SNAP-Ed programming and evaluation activity across the country and to provide a baseline for future studies examining national application of the framework.