How do we improve SNAP-Ed data?

Challenge

The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) is the country’s largest food assistance program, providing supplemental benefits to over 41 million people with low incomes to purchase groceries each month. The SNAP Nutrition Education and Obesity Prevention Services grant program (SNAP-Ed) equips people eligible for SNAP with resources and information to make healthy choices.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA’s) Food and Nutrition Service (FNS) has long recognized the need for better SNAP-Ed data. Expert roundtables, federal audits, and the 2018 Farm Bill have stressed the importance of modernizing data from the states to analyze the outcomes and effects of SNAP-Ed. FNS made substantial progress toward this goal through our recent collaboration for Updating SNAP-Ed Data Collection Practices, where we produced an agenda and action plan for improved SNAP-Ed data.

Solution

FNS contracted with Insight Policy Research (now Westat) to carry out the Improving SNAP-Ed Dataproject, which aimed to update the SNAP-Ed Data Improvement Agenda and Action Plan developed in our prior contract and then implement aspects of the plan. A key objective of this project is to better support FNS’s vision of high-quality, accessible national program data that support continuous program improvement and better outcomes for individuals with low incomes.

Results

Progress to date includes the following activities:

• Engaged SNAP-Ed experts, including state and implementing agency staff, in technical working groups and a steering committee to inform new plan and report templates and identify next steps for data improvement to build on the SNAP-Ed Data Improvement Agenda and Action Plan (PDF). See SNAP-Ed Data Improvement Action Plan 2.0 (PDF).
• Created new plan and report forms in collaboration with FNS, later developed into the new web-based systems: National Program Evaluation and Reporting System (N-PEARS).
• Coordinated with internal and external partners to understand best practices and approaches to inform development of resources, including SNAP-Ed Needs Assessment Toolkit (PDF), SNAP-Ed Policy, Systems, and Environmental Change Data Toolkit (PDF), and the SNAP-Ed Behavior Outcome Measurement Toolkit (PDF).
• Provided webinars, trainings, conference presentations, communities of practice, and single or multiagency technical assistance office hours for FNS Regional Office, state agency, and implementing agency staff on collecting and reporting data in state plans and annual reports.