Implementation Factors and Teacher Experience of the Integrated Nutrition Education Program: A Mixed Methods Program Evaluation.

BACKGROUND: School-based programs are widely implemented to address childhood obesity. Despite the promise of these programs, evidence on their effectiveness is mixed. Adopting a dissemination and implementation (D&I) science focus utilizing mixed methods can provide a broader understanding and more robust details about these programs. The goal of this evaluation is to understand how implementation factors and teacher experience influence implementation success and outcomes of the Integrated Nutrition Education Program (INEP), an elementary school-based nutrition program, using a mixed-methods design. METHODS: Reach, effectiveness, adoption, implementation, maintenance (RE-AIM) framework guided the development of the evaluation and multiple methods were deployed. Hierarchical linear regression was used to assess the association between D&I construct variables within levels of influence and teacher perception of INEP impact from a quantitative end-of-year teacher survey. Follow-up qualitative interviews with teachers were analyzed using constant comparison analysis. RESULTS: Workload and burden emerged as significant factors related to implementation in the quantitative analysis. The follow-up qualitative data collection identified other factors teachers found important to the adoption, implementation, and maintenance of INEP. CONCLUSION: Results of this evaluation can be used to inform program improvement efforts for INEP and provide information on ways to promote reach, effectiveness, adoption, implementation, and maintenance of similar school-based health promotion programs.

Understanding the experience of the implementer: teachers' perspectives on implementing a classroom-based nutrition education program.

School-based programs are widely implemented to combat childhood obesity, but these programs have mixed results. Dissemination and implementation science approaches to evaluation using qualitative methods can provide more robust details about program functioning that may be able to help explain the variation in the impact of these programs. Fourteen in-depth interviews were conducted with classroom teachers implementing a school-based program, the Integrated Nutrition Education Program (INEP), to explore their experience. Factors related to organization, individual and intervention levels emerged as facilitators and barriers to program implementation. Key factors were school culture at the organization level, individual perception and belief in the intervention at the individual level and program content, perceived complexity and adaptability at the intervention level. Socioeconomic status of the community and family involvement were contextual factors identified across all levels. Findings from this qualitative evaluation can be used for the quality improvement of INEP, but beyond this these can also be informative for other school-based programs to promote adoption, implementation and maintenance.

Outcomes of a Multi-Component School-Based Nutrition Program.

BACKGROUND: This paper presents the effectiveness of a multi-component elementary school-based nutrition education program, the Integrated Nutrition Education Program (INEP), which has been in existence for over 25 years. INEP includes components to address multiple layers of influence: hands-on nutrition education lessons in the classroom (student-level), parent education, and outreach (home-level), and facilitation of a planning process to implement policy, system, and environmental (PSE) school changes (school-level). METHODS: Three evaluation tools assessed the effectiveness of the program: (1) classroom plate waste measurement in intervention (N = 149 students) and demographically-matched comparison schools (N = 131 students), (2) pre/post classroom surveys completed by students who participated in INEP (N = 204), and (3) PSE change data from participating schools (N = 47 schools). RESULTS: Students who participated in the nutrition education program were more likely to consume vegetable-based recipes and vegetables included in classroom nutrition lessons compared to students in comparison classrooms (Chinese vegetable salad: p < .001; couscous salad: p < .001; snap peas: p = .001). Classroom survey analyses showed improvements in student self-efficacy (p < .001), preference for vegetables (p = .005), and knowledge (p < .001). In addition, through a wellness planning process, schools implemented an average of 3.7 PSE changes per school. CONCLUSIONS: Results demonstrate a multi-component school-based nutrition education program improves student nutrition-related outcomes.