Clinical trial NCT04345874: Virtual Technical Assistance for Child and Adult Care Food Program in Family Child Care Home
Official title: Compliance and Technical Assistance for Child and Adult Care Food Program in Family Child Care Homes- Virtual Implementation
Study type: INTERVENTIONAL
Overall status: COMPLETED
Phase: NA
Conditions: Nutrition Poor
Health Behavior
Keywords: early childhood education
family childcare home
food environment
Lead sponsor: University of Oklahoma
Sponsor class: OTHER
Collaborators: name: United States Department of Agriculture (USDA)
First posted: 2020-04-15
Enrollment: 69
Sex: ALL
Minimum age (years): 18
Maximum age (years): 70
Standard ages: ADULT
OLDER_ADULT
Accepts healthy volunteers: yes
Allocation: RANDOMIZED
Intervention model: PARALLEL
Intervention model description: Randomized trial where family child care home providers are randomized to either nutrition or environmental health technical assistance intervention. Interventions are matched for time and contact.
Primary purpose: PREVENTION

Brief summary: This study evaluates the effect of a fully virtual nutrition technical assistance training program for family child care home providers on the food they serve young children in their care and the food environment in their home. Half the providers will be randomly assigned to the nutrition program and the other half will receive a comparison on environmental health.

Detailed description: Early care and education (ECE) providers play a vital role in ensuring that young children have access to nutritious foods. Over 25% of children in ECE (1.2 million children) attend Family Child Care Homes (FCCH). Improvements in the Child and Adult Care Food Program (CACFP) may introduce new barriers for FCCH, which have limited meal preparation capacity. Limited research has examined foods served by FCCH providers, and no group randomized trials have been conducted using a Community-Based Participatory approach in FCCH and including an evaluation of intervention costs.

Goals: 1. Determine the effectiveness of a virtual, rural outreach community-based Nutrition Technical Assistance Intervention to enhance meeting CACFP best-practices.

Methods: Conduct a cross-sectional assessment of a random sample of FCCH providers' (n=54) menus and meals served. Foods will be evaluated against the CACFP requirements and best-practices. Trained Extension Educators will implement both interventions (n=27 intervention, n=27 comparison) focused in rural counties, reaching underserved rural and low-income populations. The intervention is based on theoretical foundations and formative interviews, and will consist of two virtual 60-90-minute one-on-one visits with the FCCH and one virtual group class lasting approximately 3 hours.

Eligibility criteria: Inclusion Criteria:

* Family Child Care Home Providers who participate in the Child and Adult Care Food Program in Oklahoma.
* Providers must serve at least 1 2-to-5 year old child and speak English.
* Providers must plan to continue their business while participating in CACFP for the next 12 months.

Exclusion Criteria:

* Family Child Care Home Providers who care for only infants and toddlers and not speak English.
* Participant withdraws.

Primary outcomes:
measure: Self-reported nutrition practices
timeFrame: baseline, changes post 3-months, changes post 12-months
measure: nutrition environment
timeFrame: baseline, changes post 3-months, changes post 12-months
measure: compliance of menu and meal with Child and Adult Care Food Program requirements using compliance scoring tool created by collaborative research team
timeFrame: baseline, changes post 3-months, changes post 12-months
measure: dietary quality of foods served
timeFrame: baseline, changes post 3-months, changes post 12-months
Secondary outcomes:
measure: Provider self-efficacy
timeFrame: baseline, post 3-months, post 12-months
measure: Environmental health observation
timeFrame: baseline, post 3-months, post 12-months
Other outcomes:
Locations:
city: Oklahoma City
country: United States
facility: University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center
state: Oklahoma
Study officials:
affiliation: University of Oklahoma
name: Susan B Sisson, PhD
role: PRINCIPAL_INVESTIGATOR
References: