The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) is seeking applications to advance health, equity, and wellbeing.
Healthy Eating Research supports this goal through improving diet quality and nutrition for all Americans, addressing nutrition disparities, and reducing food and nutrition insecurity.
The purpose of this call for proposals (CFP) is to generate evidence on supportive family policies and programs that have strong potential to impact equitable access to nutritious food in communities, nutrition security, diet quality, and improved nutrition and health outcomes. They are especially interested in strategies to improve health outcomes for families with lower incomes and/or racially and ethnically diverse populations experiencing higher rates of diet related chronic disease and/or health disparities. Findings will be used to guide and inform decision making about policy and system changes that can advance nutrition equity and improve health.
Through this CFP, they seek to learn what works (or not), why, and under what circumstances; who benefits the most from these policies and programs; and whether disparities are reduced. They are interested in solution-oriented research that focuses on policy, systems, and environmental (PSE) change at the national, state, local, and tribal levels. The PSE research strategies can focus on how to strengthen or build on existing policies or programs; evaluation of current policies or programs; or designing and pilot-testing new innovative programs that have policy-relevance. They are also interested in PSE research that is more developmental in nature but has potential for policy and systems impact in addressing nutrition inequities. Additionally, they are looking to support work that seeks to develop, validate, and evaluate new measures for assessing PSE changes and also nutrition and health equity measures that could be used to measure progress.
Priority Topic Areas
This CFP focuses on five priority topic areas related to supportive family policies and programs to improve nutrition and health:
Child nutrition programs
Child nutrition programs help ensure that children receive nutritious food, including meals and snacks that promote their health, growth, and school success.
Through this CFP, there is an opportunity to examine strategies to expand the reach and impact of these programs. Strategies may include innovations in technologies; expanding program outreach and eligibility; simplifying program enrollment processes; identifying ways to improve equity within nutrition assistance programs; building the evidence base for these programs’ impacts on diet quality, food insecurity, nutrition, weight, and health; and areas for improvements and scalability.
Food Access and hunger-relief programs
Equitable access to healthy and affordable food in the U.S. is a major public health concern. To increase access to food and nutrition and reduce hunger among families, USDA administers the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), the SNAP-Ed Connection program, The WIC Farmers Market Nutrition Program (FMNP), The Emergency Food Assistance Program (TEFAP), and the Food Distribution Program on Indian Reservations (FDPIR). There are also other national, state, local, and community programs that are using novel approaches to increase access to healthy foods in low-resource communities and settings.
Structural inequities impacting access to healthy and affordable foods
Structural barriers, such as racism and classism, involve processes by which interconnected political, economic, social, and ideological systems generate and maintain unequal access to opportunities and resources. Such barriers are the result of historical and contemporary policies and practices deeply rooted within systems.
The food justice and Indigenous food sovereignty movements are grassroots community initiatives emerging in response to food insecurity and economic shocks that prevent access to healthy, nutritious, and culturally appropriate foods. These movements view disparities in healthy food access as a systemic problem stemming from structural racism, inequalities, and loss of community control of food.
By confronting the root causes of injustice in the food system, community activists and advocates seek to reclaim communities’ self-determination and sovereignty over food access and production. Communities of color and Indigenous populations are taking action to address structural racism and systemic inequities by building community power to improve health.
Social and economic policies and programs
Social and economic inequities drive child nutrition disparities. To date, little research has been conducted on the relationships and interconnections between nutrition, weight, and food and nutrition security in families and policies related to poverty reduction, family income supports, economic resources, housing assistance, or other family supportive policies. Some examples of these policies and programs include: financial payments to families; income assistance and support programs; housing assistance or housing security programs; and increased access to social services [e.g., childcare subsidies; Medicaid; Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP); DoD programs for military families].
Emerging topics
This category is intended to allow for exploration of new and emerging public health topics impacting nutrition security, food security, and/or health equity and innovative policies, systems, and environmental strategies to support the optimal health of children and families.
Examples of potential topics could include applying a prevention (rather than clinical) lens to food in medicine initiatives; identifying novel ways to utilize Medicaid or CHIP programs to optimize families’ nutrition and food security; examining the impacts of climate change on food systems and access to healthy foods; examining the implications of new obesity/weight loss drugs for public health and prevention initiatives, especially related to prevention work with adolescents and young children; addressing unique issues impacting the health and wellbeing of rural communities; examining issues related to public health datasets; development of new measures and metrics for measuring progress, and others.
Funding Information
Type of Awards: Awards funded under this opportunity will be structured as grants.
Amount of Award: Each award will be up to a maximum of $275,000 with a total of up to $2.5 million to be funded through this CFP. They encourage proposals that request lower budget amounts.
Award Duration: Awards will be a maximum of 24 months in duration. They encourage proposals that request shorter periods (e.g., 12 to 18 months).
Eligibility Criteria
Applicant organizations must be based in the United States or its territories.
Awards will be made to organizations, not to individuals.
Preference will be given to applicants that are either public entities or nonprofit organizations that are tax-exempt under Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code and are not private foundations or Type III supporting organizations. The Foundation may require additional documentation.
