These briefs share the findings from the USDA School Food Preparation Study.
The USDA Nutrition Education Report to Congress Fiscal Year 2024 offers a description of nutrition education within the United States Department of Agriculture and a summary of coordinated nutrition education activities completed from October 2023 through September 2024.
We regularly collect information about the school meal programs and how they operate from the people who know best – the state agencies that oversee the programs in each state and territory and the school food authorities that manage the programs locally in one or more schools.
Food distribution program data.
The WIC and FMNP Modernization Evaluation tracks the progress and outcomes of program modernization efforts funded by Congress in 2021. This first annual report provides an overview of the WIC and FMNP modernization efforts underway and highlights early implementation findings, covering activities from September 2022 - September 2024.
This report responds to a Congressional directive in the Further Consolidated Appropriations Bill of 2020, tasking the USDA FNA with studying challenges facing FDPIR in reaching underserved populations, specifically homebound and elderly individuals unable to travel to FDPIR distribution locations. The report summarizes findings from a survey of FDPIR program operators about how they serve these populations, challenges encountered, and recommendations for enhancing accessibility for the homebound and elderly.
In 2019, USDA’s Team Nutrition awarded a training grant to the Michigan Department of Education to implement a two-year training program for School Nutrition Managers called E-STAR. E-STAR is intended to improve school meal quality and student perceptions of meal quality. This study examined how the grantee implemented E-STAR, participant engagement, and facilitators and barriers to engagement.
The program participation dashboard is an interactive tool that provides FNA nutrition program data, including participation and meals served, at the state, territory, and national levels.
This analysis helps to estimate the nutritional quality of the 2022 FDPIR food package 'as offered' using the Healthy Eating Index scoring algorithm. This will provide an update to the first HEI estimate of the 2014 FDPIR food package. The project also aims to estimate the HEIs of the food packages 'as delivered' to participants.
The Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2023 authorized Summer Electronic Benefits Transfer for Children (Summer EBT) as a permanent federal food assistance entitlement program beginning in summer 2024. Summer EBT has been tested through evaluations of demonstration projects since 2011. With pending implementation of this new program, this is an appropriate time to reflect on what USDA, FNA research has learned through more than a decade of study.