BRIEF RESEARCH REPORT article
Front. Nutr.
Sec. Food Policy and Economics
Volume 12 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fnut.2025.1613236
Estimating the value of an early childhood education nutrition program
Provisionally accepted
- 1University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, Little Rock, Arkansas, United States
- 2Louisiana Tech University, Ruston, Louisiana, United States
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Objective: To estimate the cost, effectiveness, and value of the WISE (We Inspire Smart Eating) intervention compared to usual nutrition education (UNE) in Arkansas's Head Start programs participating in the Child and Adult Care Food Program (CACFP)..A pre-post-study design with non-randomized group assignment was used to compare cost, body mass index (BMI), and fruit and vegetable intake (measured by the Food Frequency Questionnaire, FFQ) among children aged 3-5 between September 2015 and April 2018.Results: Children at WISE sites showed greater increase in FFQ scores (0.29 units; p<0.01) compared to those at UNE sites (0.05 units; p=0.15), with no significant BMI differences between groups. WISE costs $2.16 per child per month, compared to $3.52 for UNE. WISE was both more effective and less expensive 25% of the time, costing $0.26 per 1-unit increase in FFQ scores. The WISE intervention remained favorable even when sites were unwilling to pay for the intervention.WISE promoted healthier diets at a lower cost than UNE, as evidenced by improving FFQ scores. These findings provide insight for decision-makers regarding the intervention's cost, potential savings, and overall value.
Keywords: early childhood nutrition, Nutrition program evaluation, Cost-Effectiveness, childhood health outcomes, Health Economics
Received: 16 Apr 2025; Accepted: 29 Sep 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Mahashabde, Smtih, Swindle, Rutledge, Dong and Painter. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Jacob Painter, jtpainter@uams.edu
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