10.597: School Wellness Policy Cooperative Agreement

10.597

Inactive

Food and Nutrition Service (FNS) [USDA]

Sept. 8, 2022

Sept. 21, 2021

The Local Wellness Policy Surveillance System allows us to monitor, collect, and analyze state law and local district policy data and their effects on the implementation of NSLA legislation and rules and student health outcomes. Through this competitive cooperative agreement, the University of Illinois has developed a national-level surveillance system that addresses the previous gaps in surveillance by federally and non-federally funded systems and surveys. Three major federal-level surveillance systems and surveys were in place at the time this agreement was awarded; each was expected to continue for at least another 2-3 years, if not indefinitely. Each of these surveillance systems and surveys is funded by a government agency, and each collects detailed data on the breadth and depth of existing state laws, district policies, and related school practices; the implementation of said laws, policies, and practices; and their effects on student health outcomes. The next section describes the strengths, primary areas of focus, periodicity, and other key characteristics for each of three major national surveillance systems and surveys. In so doing, it also highlights important gaps in what they cover, individually and collectively, and areas where linkage with other relevant surveys or research efforts is able to provide a more detailed picture of school wellness policies and their effects. 1. School Nutrition and Meal Cost Study/School Nutrition Dietary Assessment The School Nutrition Dietary Assessment (SNDA) is administrated by the USDA’s Food and Nutrition Service (FNS) every 5 years and collects and analyzes nationally representative data on school meals and the school meal environment (including competitive foods) at the district- and school-levels, with individual-level dietary information collected every 10 years.SNDA-V was administered as the School Nutrition and Meal Cost Study (SNMCS) in SY 2014-2015 and includes SNDA-type meal assessment data as well as data on meal cost, dietary recall, plate waste, and meals’ compliance with standards. SNDA/SNMCS is the only assessment that examines specifically the nutritional quality of school meals, how and if those meals are meeting the new standards, and meal cost. Examining SNDA/SNMCS data together with state law and district policy data, which SNDA does not currently collect, has the potential to demonstrate how the laws and policies at the state- and district-level are being implemented in, or affecting, lunchrooms (with regard to meal planning and meal environment) and students (with regard to meal cost and diet). 2. Classification of Laws Associated with School Students The National Cancer Institute’s Classification of Laws Associated with School Students (C.L.A.S.S.) is a policy classification system that can be used to evaluate state-level codified laws for nutrition and physical education in schools across all 50 states and the District of Columbia by grade level. C.L.A.S.S. uses state law as the data source and scores the concordance between state laws and national school wellness policy mandates. C.L.A.S.S. data are publicly available for use by researchers, policy makers, and school administrators to obtain information on state laws associated with childhood obesity, track policy changes over time, test relationships between law and behavior, associate C.L.A.S.S. scores with state- and school district-policies, and link to information about obesity and other cancer-related behaviors. C.L.A.S.S. also offers two data visualization tools: (1) a map function that depicts the strength of specific policy areas by grade level across states, and (2) a profile function that depicts policy scores across grade levels within each state by year. While C.L.A.S.S. is the only classification system that objectively scores state laws on nutritional and physical activity, it does not identify specific elements of the state laws. Therefore, additional, complementary research is required to parse out and examine relationships between individual policy components (e.g., addressing sugar or fat content in school foods) and related school practices and student outcomes (e.g., diet, physical activity, BMI). 3. School Health Policies and Practices Study The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s School Health Policies and Practices Study (SHPPS) is a national, comprehensive survey conducted to assess school wellness at the state-, district-, school-, and classroom-levels. SHPPS surveys cover health education, physical education, health services, mental health and social services, nutrition services, healthy and safe school environments, and faculty and staff health promotion. Due to the comprehensive design of SHPPS, wellness policy data may be linked with other school health data. SHPPS data are collected every two years, alternating school- and classroom-level data collection with district-level data collection. In 2014, SHPPS collected school- and classroom-level data, and in the following cycle (2016) it collected district-level data. SHPPS is unique in monitoring both school health policies and school wellness policies, which is essential for linking LWPs to student health outcomes such as services received, safety, and environments. The multi-level aspect of SHPPS assessments presents the opportunity for linking this data with state law data in order to show the effects of state laws on LWPs, and the effects of LWPs on overall health. However, SHPPS data are not collected annually. Great progress has been made in adopting school wellness policies and in developing surveillance systems to monitor their implementation and impact. Yet continued progress in school wellness, school wellness policy development, and positive impacts requires surveillance that provides a fuller understanding of the strengths and limitations of current policies, and that chart the course for evidence-based improvements. This competitive cooperative agreement provides a national-level surveillance system that addresses the most important gaps in the coverage of the existing school wellness policy surveillance systems and surveys by: - linking enacted school district wellness policy and related state law data with data being collected through other existing surveillance systems (e.g., SNDA, CLASS, SHPPS) in 2014-2015; - conducting a nationwide evaluation of the scope of “on-the-books” (enacted) school district wellness policies and related state laws; - collecting and analyzing qualitative data that can explore the implementation of and compliance with NSLA policies across various stakeholders (e.g., administrators, school food authorities, parents, children, etc.); and - developing and disseminating timely policy briefs, fact sheets, and other translation products (e.g., infographics) to inform the USDA, Congress, and the research field of key school wellness policy surveillance results and gaps as well as to produce papers for peer-reviewed publication.

B - Cooperative Agreements

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https://sam.gov/fal/c2fc55729cce48cb9e79975d374864ad/view