Age/Population Group: Adults

Stanford Youth Diabetes Coaching Program

The Stanford Youth Diabetes Coaches Program (SYDCP) facilitates partnerships between medical training programs and high schools serving youth from socioeconomically disadvantaged and underrepresented minority communities. The SYDCP is a “train the trainer program” in which medical residents (and other health professional trainees) train high school students to coach family members with diabetes or other chronic illnesses. The program consists of 8 tightly scripted, interactive PowerPoint based lessons that incorporate evidence-based approaches to chronic disease management, highlighting healthy eating and physical activity. The curriculum is based on Kate Lorig’s Adult Chronic Disease Self-Management Model, Social Cognitive Theory, and peer health coaching, and is designed to address the burden of chronic disease in underserved communities by focusing on health knowledge, communication skills, goal setting, problem solving, and healthy behaviors. 

Please Note: Medical nutrition therapy is not allowable for SNAP-Ed. We strongly recommend you partner with a healthcare professional to provide those components of this intervention. Components focused on healthy eating and physical activity are appropriate for SNAP-Ed. 

Target Behavior: Healthy Eating, Physical Activity and Reduced Screen Time 

Intervention Type: Direct Education

Pennsylvania Healthy Pantry Initiative

The Pennsylvania Healthy Pantry Initiative (PA HPI) is a PSE change intervention designed to increase access to healthy food and promote healthy food choices within the food pantry. PA HPI provides resources to implement strategies included in the pantry assessment. The strategies are divided into five categories: inventory, environment and healthy nudges, health promotion and marketing, nutrition policies and guidelines and services, resources and training. Nutrition educators collaborate with food pantry staff and volunteers, as well as food bank staff to assess, plan and implement strategies according to the needs and capacity of the pantry. 

Target Behavior: Healthy Eating 

Intervention Type: PSE Change 

Chronic Disease Self-Management Program

The Chronic Disease Self-Management Program (CDSMP) is a direct education intervention that helps individuals and caregivers of those with chronic health conditions build a “toolbox” of strategies they can utilize to help achieve their health goals. Workshops are for adults and are highly participatory and build mutual support. Workshop topics include techniques to deal with symptoms of chronic conditions, such as fatigue, pain, sleeplessness, shortness of breath, stress, and emotional problems, such as depression, anger, fear, and frustration. Participants will learn appropriate exercise for maintaining and improving strength and endurance, falls prevention, healthy eating, better breathing techniques, appropriate use of medication, working more effectively with health care providers, communication skills, action planning, problem solving, and decision making. Through actively achieving small goals, participants obtain success which builds confidence in their ability to manage their health and maintain active, fulfilling lives. 

Please Note: Medical nutrition therapy is not allowable for SNAP-Ed. We strongly recommend you partner with a healthcare professional to provide those components of this intervention. Components focused on healthy eating and physical activity are appropriate for SNAP-Ed. 

Target Behavior: Healthy Eating, Physical Activity and Reduced Screen Time 

Intervention Type: Direct Education 

StrongPeople™ Strong Hearts

StrongPeople™ Strong Hearts (SPSH) is a cardiovascular disease risk reduction program for midlife and older adults designed to improve diet and physical activity behaviors, assess local food and physical environment resources, and shift social norms about active living and healthy eating. The program consists of experiential one-hour group classes twice weekly for six months (48 classes) addressing multiple levels of the socioecological model (individual, social, and environmental levels). Class activities include aerobic exercise; strength training; instruction, discussion, and activities related to nutrition, physical activity, stress, and social support; and civic engagement activities to increase awareness and knowledge of aspects of the local food and physical environment that make healthy living easier or more difficult.  

Target Behavior: Healthy Eating, Physical Activity and Reduced Screen Time 

Intervention Type: Direct Education 

A Taste of African Heritage

A Taste of African Heritage (ATOAH) is a direct education cooking and nutrition curriculum designed to increase consumption of fruits, vegetables, whole grains, beans, and spices and reduce salt; improve cooking skills and nutritional literacy; reduce diet-related health disparities in the African American community using heritage as a motivator for health; and reframe nutrition and culinary education in a way that is culturally relevant to participants and honors African American’s culture, traditions, and contributions. African Americans are too often told that the foods they grew up eating are unhealthy and that poor health is a part of their heritage. A Taste of African Heritage (ATOAH) flips the script by celebrating the culinary legacy and often-unsung cultural ownership of healthy eating for people of African descent. Consisting of six 2-hour sessions which feature healthy foods (like leafy greens, whole grains, and beans) from across the African diaspora, the accessible six-session format can be easily scaled into existing community health infrastructure, yet it is immersive enough to produce meaningful results. 

Please Note: If using this curriculum with SNAP-Ed audiences, MyPlate must also be introduced and discussed along with the curriculum.

Target Behavior: Healthy Eating 

Intervention Type: Direct Education

Steps to Health’s Nuts and Bolts of a Healthy Food Pantry

The Nuts and Bolts of a Health Food Pantry Toolkit is a direct education and PSE change intervention that is designed to support pantries in improving the food environment so their clients can choose healthy food and beverage items. The components of the Toolkit include a resource guide, baseline and follow-up assessments to explore opportunities for PSE, training modules for food pantry staff and volunteers, action planning tools for sustaining PSE changes, and promotional materials, such as signage and “nudge” cards to influence healthy choices. The Toolkit equips partners to share best practices when collaborating with food pantries.  

Target Behavior: Healthy Eating, Food Insecurity/Food Assistance  

Intervention Type: Direct Education, PSE Change 

Steps to Health’s PSE Toolkit: The Ingredients for a Welcoming Farmers Market

The Ingredients for a Welcoming Farmers Market Toolkit is a PSE change intervention that uses best practices to contribute to a more welcoming farmers market environment for all community members. The Toolkit outlines a 7-step process designed to assist with data collection, analysis, and action planning. The baseline assessment determines whether the market is implementing the healthy practice in question or if the market needs some improvement in that area. The resource guide helps staff better understand why questions are included in the assessment, and how the market can improve its practices related to each question. Using the Community Food Survey included in the Toolkit, staff collect responses from community members to better understand why individuals might not attend the farmer’s market or what foods they might be interested in buying at the market.  

Target Behavior: Food Insecurity/Food Assistance 

Intervention Type: PSE Change 

Supporting Wellness at Pantries (SWAP) using the HER Nutrition Guidelines for the Charitable Food System

Supporting Wellness at Pantries (SWAP) is a PSE intervention designed to promote the donation and selection of nutritious foods throughout the charitable food system. The program is based on the theory that categorizing food using simple, intuitive labels and communicating this information at each decision point while food travels through the system (donor, food bank, food pantry, & client) has the potential to transform the policy, systems, and environment of food banks and food pantries. SWAP consists of a suite of tools for food banks and food pantries to rank their inventory using a traffic light nutrition system. SWAP was developed in 2016 and revised in 2020 to align with and use the Healthy Eating Research (HER) Nutrition Guidelines for the Charitable Food System. These guidelines place foods into 11 categories and assign green=choose often; yellow=choose sometimes; and red=choose rarely based on levels of saturated fat, sodium, and added sugars. SWAP can be used as an intervention in multiple levels of the charitable food system to promote food justice and health equity. 

Target Behavior: Healthy Eating, Food Insecurity/Food Assistance 

Intervention Type: PSE Change 

Around the Table

Around the Table is a direct education intervention for youth that upholds principles of trauma-informed engagement and nourishment. It is designed to improve cooking skills, food safety, food resource management, and healthy eating, as well as increase awareness surrounding stress, emotional eating, health values, and feeding children. Participants enjoy hands-on cooking, facilitated conversations, and interactive activities that build healthy connections to food, self, and community.  

Additionally, Around the Table: Nourishing Families is for young adults and parents. It is a curriculum that upholds principles of trauma-informed engagement and nourishment where participants enjoy conversation, reflection, cooking, sharing a meal together, and learning holistic skills to care for their families’ nutritional well-being.  

Target Behavior: Healthy Eating  
Intervention Type: Direct Education 

Telephonic Health Coaching Intervention (THC) Toolkit

The Telephonic Health Coaching Intervention (THC) Toolkit is a direct education intervention designed to:

  • Increase frequency of eating all five food groups
  • Increase frequency of eating a variety of fruits and vegetables
  • Increase whole fruit consumption by at least half a cup per day
  • Increase vegetable consumption by at least half a cup per day
  • Increase frequency of intake of fat-free or low-fat dairy including (dairy/nondairy) and yogurt, and decrease frequency of intake of full fat dairy (milk/yogurt)
  • Increase frequency of whole grains and decrease consumption of refined grains
  • Increase frequency of lean proteins and decrease frequency of high fat proteins
  • Decrease sugar-sweetened beverage intake
  • Increase frequency of low sodium foods
  • Increase minutes of daily physical activity

In order to achieve these goals, the THC intervention provides material to train SNAP-Ed educators to be health coaches that engage with clients by telephone and use behavior change techniques to craft individual goals related to healthy eating and physical activity. The increased intensity, duration and personalization of the THC intervention improve the likelihood that persons eligible for SNAP will make healthy food choices and choose physically active lifestyles consistent with the current USDA Dietary Guidelines for Americans.

Target Behavior: Healthy Eating, Physical Activity and Reducing Screen Time

Intervention Type: Direct Education