(Press-News.org) Philadelphia, September 18, 2023 – Very young children who attend child care and receive onsite meals and snacks were more likely to be food secure and in good health, and less likely to be admitted after a hospital emergency department visit than children in child care whose meals and snacks were provided from home, according to a new study in the Journal of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, published by Elsevier. These potential benefits could extend beyond the children themselves to their families, including through possible reductions in stress, and to society as a whole through potentially significant healthcare cost savings.
Lead author Stephanie Ettinger de Cuba, PhD, MPH, Executive Director, Children’s HealthWatch; Research Associate Professor, Department of Health Law, Policy & Management, Boston University School of Public Health; and Department of Pediatrics, Boston University Chobanian & Avedisian School of Medicine, explained, “Good nutrition in early childhood is an essential foundation for healthy child growth and development, and our research points to the potential impact of policies that provide very young children with wholesome meals while they are in child care.”
Children’s HealthWatch brings together pediatricians, child health researchers, and policy experts to achieve health equity for young children and their families by advancing research to transform policy.
The study included 3,084 children attending child care, aged 13 to 48 months, from low-income households with a child care subsidy. The investigators interviewed their parents or caregivers as they sought medical care for the children in emergency departments or primary care clinics in five US cities: Baltimore, Boston, Little Rock, Minneapolis, and Philadelphia, between January 2010 and March 2020. Approximately 87% of the group studied meals and snacks provided by the child care facility to meals and snacks provided by parents and served in the child care settings, most likely federally supported through the Child and Adult Care Feeding Program (CACFP).
Compared to those with parent-provided meals and snacks, children with child care-provided meals were 30% less likely to live in food-insecure households, 39% less likely to be in fair or poor health, and 41% less likely to be admitted to the hospital from the emergency department.
Senior investigator Diana B. Cutts, MD, University of Minnesota, Chair, Department of Pediatrics, Hennepin County Medical Center, Minneapolis, noted, “Food justice for children is about consistent access to healthy, developmentally appropriate nutrition for every child, in every site of their care. Nutritional programs that support young children are an essential investment in children, families, and communities with a return that is not only immediate but extends for generations.”
The study also bolsters the evidence that child care feeding programs, specifically CACFP, are essential supports for young children’s health and their families’ food security in combination with and also independent of other nutrition programs.
Dr. Ettinger de Cuba added, “Strengthening and improving access to programs like CACFP offers a vitally important pathway to ensuring both children and their families can flourish. The Child Nutrition Reauthorization Act (CNR) provides an immediate opportunity to improve and expand child nutrition programs in an evidence-based way, support child and family health, and prevent hospitalizations and associated costs.”
Opportunities to strengthen CACFP include boosting funding levels to enable more providers to participate in the program, reducing administrative barriers and burdens, and increasing reimbursement rates to support the cost of healthy foods and the means to prepare them.
In 2010, Congress made changes to CACFP that improved meal quality and reduced barriers to participation. The time period of data collected and analyzed for this study (2010-2020) runs parallel to these changes and their implementation, which provided the investigators with a unique opportunity to demonstrate the importance of the program, especially in light of its upcoming reauthorization at the federal level.
According to Dr. Ettinger de Cuba, “The widespread disruptions observed during the pandemic, which immediately followed the study period, highlighted the critical role of child care in providing healthy meals and snacks for low-income children and underscored the importance of strengthening child care nutrition programs.”
END
Power meals: Child care-provided meals are associated with improved child and family health
The upcoming reauthorization of the US Child Nutrition Act is an opportunity to strengthen vitally important child care nutrition programs, reports new research in the Journal of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics
2023-09-18
ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:
DOE backs Rice study of how soils store carbon
2023-09-18
HOUSTON – (Sept. 18, 2023) – Two Rice University scientists have received a 3-year grant from the Department of Energy (DOE) to investigate a form of carbon storage that is as little understood as it is ubiquitous: soil.
Mark Torres, an assistant professor of Earth, environmental and planetary sciences, and Evan Ramos, a postdoctoral fellow in the Torres lab, will track how key minerals form in a watershed to build a fuller picture of the processes that allow soil to store carbon as organic matter.
“Soil on Earth contains three times more carbon than the atmosphere,” Ramos said. “We ...
University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus receives $54 million from NIH
2023-09-18
The National Institutes of Health has awarded $54 million over a seven-year period to the CCTSI at CU Anschutz. The grant from the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (NCATS) will fuel biomedical research and training across the state. This is the fourth consecutive time the NIH has funded the CCTSI since 2008 through its Clinical Translational Science Award (CTSA) program.
“This powerful grant will allow the University of Colorado to conduct leading-edge research that can directly impact health and patient care, reduce health disparities across our state and remain poised to respond to public ...
UNIST and Pusan National University Yangsan Hospital collaborate on advanced 3D printing medical device technology
2023-09-18
UNIST, in collaboration with Pusan National University Yangsan Hospital, has embarked on an exciting joint venture to research and develop advanced 3D printing medical device technology.
The UNIST 3D Printing Convergence Technology Center recently signed a business agreement with the Medical Device Usability Test Center at Pusan National University Yangsan Hospital. This agreement outlines their collaborative efforts in various areas, including the research and development of 3D printing-based medical devices as well as support for the commercialization of domestically developed devices.
Notably, Yangsan Pusan National University ...
The missing link to make easy protein sequencing possible?
2023-09-18
There has been a real race among scientists to create a technology that enables easy protein sequencing. Professor of Chemical Biology Giovanni Maglia of the University of Groningen has now found the missing piece in the puzzle: a way to transport a protein through a nanopore, which allows sequencing of proteins in a simple, handheld device.
DNA sequencing has been a revolution in how we understand life, and sequencing proteins is the next holy grail. Maglia explains: ‘DNA is mostly static. The processes in our cells are executed by proteins: they do the actual work. ...
Ochsner Health to integrate generative AI into patient messaging
2023-09-18
This month, Ochsner Health is launching a pilot program that uses AI to draft simple messages to patients in the MyOchsner app portal. A small group of Ochsner clinicians will participate in testing a new Epic feature that drafts responses to routine patient requests, which will then be reviewed and edited by the clinicians. The feature is meant to speed up app response time to patients and allows doctors to spend more time with patients.
“Ochsner has long been a leader in using digital tools to improve the patient experience,” said Ochsner ...
Using augmented reality to make Parkinson's disease physical therapy more accessible
2023-09-18
An augmented-reality headset is an effective digital tool for improving posture and gait in people with Parkinson’s disease, according to a recent Cleveland Clinic trial. Findings were published in Neurorehabilitation and Neural Repair.
Augmented reality, or AR, allows users to complete digital programs projected into the world around them. The “Dual-task augmented Reality Treatment” (DART) uses the Microsoft HoloLens2 to run patients through dual-task training (DTT), a series of tasks designed to engage the brain and body simultaneously.
Activities ...
State grant allows for UC’s continued research on firefighter protective gear
2023-09-18
A team of UC researchers across three colleges has been awarded an additional $1.5 million state grant to continue research on improving firefighter protective gear.
In 2022, the Ohio Bureau of Workers’ Compensation (BWC) awarded a UC team an initial $1.2 million to provide proof of concept on the development of a firefighter jacket liner that brings a firefighter’s body temperature down through advanced cooling technology and protects the body from other external hazards.
That grant, and the new $1.5 million grant to carry the proof of concept to commercialization, ...
Pediatric ED visits, hospitalizations for self-harm up during pandemic, especially in adolescent females; "Less is better" is the best message when talking to patients about alcohol
2023-09-18
CMAJ headlines:
Pediatric ED visits and hospitalizations for self-harm, suicidal thoughts increased in Canada during pandemic, especially in young adolescent females
"Less is better" is the best message when talking to patients about alcohol
Pediatric ED visits and hospitalizations for self-harm, suicidal thoughts increased in Canada during pandemic, especially in young adolescent females
The COVID-19 pandemic had an outsized impact on the mental health of adolescents, especially young adolescent females, with a higher-than-expected number of emergency department (ED) visits and hospitalizations for self-harm and suicidal ideation, according to two new research ...
Study explores how healthcare workers share appreciation, promote positive workplace culture
2023-09-18
Healthcare organizations, in reviewing care delivery opportunities and providing feedback to staff, often focus on what went wrong, but a new study suggests that reversing this perspective may help organizations improve their work culture by understanding what went right. A team of Mass General Brigham researchers analyzed peer-to-peer positive feedback, systematically collected when caring for a dying patient as part of a mandatory mortality review process. They found that standardized collection and sharing of positive feedback — what went right — is a feasible way to increase mutual ...
Researchers create “lipidomic map,” offering insights into immunology
2023-09-18
An international team of scientists has developed a method for simultaneously detecting thousands of lipid molecules that are displayed to T cells in the human immune system. The study, co-led by D. Branch Moody, MD, of the Division of Rheumatology, Immunity and Inflammation at Brigham and Women's Hospital, a founding member of the Mass General Brigham healthcare system, represents a collaboration among researchers from Oxford, United Kingdom, Melbourne, Australia and Groningen, Netherlands. Results are published in Cell.
The team developed a new and sensitive method to detect more than 2,000 lipids bound to CD1 ...
LAST 30 PRESS RELEASES:
Insulin resistance is linked to over 30 diseases – and to early death in women, study of people in the UK finds
Innovative semaglutide hydrogel could reduce diabetes shots to once a month
Weight loss could reduce the risk of severe infections in people with diabetes, UK research suggests
Long-term exposure to air pollution and a lack of green space increases the risk of hospitalization for respiratory conditions
Better cardiovascular health in early pregnancy may offset high genetic risk
Artificial intelligence method transforms gene mutation prediction in lung cancer: DeepGEM data releases at IASLC 2024 World Conference on Lung Cancer
Antibody–drug conjugate I-DXd shows clinically meaningful response in patients with extensive-stage small cell lung cancer
IASLC Global Survey on biomarker testing reveals progress and persistent barriers in lung cancer biomarker testing
Research shows pathway to developing predictive biomarkers for immune checkpoint inhibitors
Just how dangerous is Great Salt Lake dust? New research looks for clues
Maroulas appointed Associate Vice Chancellor, Director of AI Tennessee
New chickadee research finds cognitive skills impact lifespan
Cognitive behavioral therapy enhances brain circuits to relieve depression
Terasaki Institute awarded $2.3 Million grant from NIH for organ transplantation research using organs-on-a-chip technology
Atoms on the edge
Postdoc takes multipronged approach to muon detection
Mathematical proof: Five satellites needed for precise navigation
Scalable, multi-functional device lays groundwork for advanced quantum applications
Falling for financial scams? It may signal early Alzheimer’s disease
Integrating MRI and OCT for new insights into brain microstructure
Designing a normative neuroimaging library to support diagnosis of traumatic brain injury
Department of Energy announces $68 million in funding for artificial intelligence for scientific research
DOE, ORNL announce opportunity to define future of high-performance computing
Molecular simulations, supercomputing lead to energy-saving biomaterials breakthrough
Low-impact yoga and exercise found to help older women manage urinary incontinence
Genetic studies reveal new insights into cognitive impairment in schizophrenia
Researcher develops technology to provide cleaner energy and cleaner water
Expect the unexpected: nanoscale silver unveils intrinsic self-healing abilities
nTIDE September 2024 Jobs Report: Gains in employment for people with disabilities appear to level off after reducing gaps with non-disabled workers
Wiley enhances NMR Spectral Library Collection with extensive new databases
[Press-News.org] Power meals: Child care-provided meals are associated with improved child and family healthThe upcoming reauthorization of the US Child Nutrition Act is an opportunity to strengthen vitally important child care nutrition programs, reports new research in the Journal of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics