Efforts to educate individuals about the benefits of healthy eating and nutrition occur at the federal, state, and local levels through a variety of different agencies and programs. However, the USDA leads the nation’s nutrition education efforts, providing nutrition education through the EFNEP program and through four of its major nutrition assistance programs. The extent to which nutrition education is integrated into nutrition assistance programs varies. In some programs, such as WIC, it is a mandatory component of the program. In others, it plays a lesser role. Each program has different legislative requirements and administrative structures for its nutrition education efforts. In addition, each program has a particular funding level to support its nutrition education efforts. Several federal agencies support nutrition education. However, in 1977, USDA was named the lead agency for nutrition research, extension, and teaching.Among USDA’s wide array of responsibilities—including overseeing the nation’s forests, conserving the nation’s resources, and leading the nation’s anti-hunger efforts—it provides nutrition education through the EFNEP program and four of its nutrition assistance programs. In recent years, USDA has shifted its nutrition education focus from providing and disseminating nutrition information to more directly fostering changes in dietary behavior. USDA sets program regulations and guidelines that support its broad nutrition education goal, which is to provide an integrated nutrition education program that contributes to a nutritionally knowledgeable public, motivated to make behavioral change to promote optimal health and nutritional status. Within USDA, the Center for Nutrition Policy and Promotion oversees nutrition education policy and develops and maintains the Dietary Guidelines for Americans and the Food Guide Pyramid. USDA tries to ensure that its nutrition education integrates the messages established in USDA’s Dietary Guidelines for Americans and the Food Guide Pyramid; these efforts help USDA officials ensure some consistency across their nutrition education efforts. The five USDA programs that provide nutrition education differ in their overall mission and their legislative requirements, administering entities, and funding levels for nutrition education. First, only one of the five programs—EFNEP—is uniquely a nutrition education program; the four other programs are primarily nutrition assistance programs. These programs provide nutrition education through an array of state and local administering entities, from health and education departments to Cooperative Extension offices, a network of educators in universities and county offices. While these programs may differ operationally, they have the potential to reach a broad population with their nutrition education efforts. EFNEP is a federally funded program specifically designed to educate low- income families and youth about nutrition and nutrition-related subjects, such as food safety and food budgeting. (See table 1.) USDA initiated the program in fiscal year 1969 to help low-income families better understand nutrition and manage their food resources. EFNEP is administered at the state level by Cooperative Extension offices, which oversee the allocation of federal EFNEP funds. Federal EFNEP funds are allocated to states based on population data from the decennial census. Cooperative Extension offices then allocate EFNEP funds to county extension offices by targeting first those counties with the highest levels of poverty. First authorized in 1974, WIC provides supplemental food and nutrition education to low-income pregnant, breast-feeding, and postpartum women and to infants and children under age 5. (See table 2.) In fiscal year 2000, the WIC program served almost half of all infants and about one-quarter of all children ages 1 through 4 in the United States. WIC is federally funded, and most of the program’s resources are allocated for providing participants with paper vouchers in exchange for approved foods at grocery stores, including milk, juice, and cereal. However, federal program regulations require that each state expend at least one-sixth of its nutrition services and administration grants on nutrition education. This education must be offered to all WIC caregivers. However, WIC participants cannot be denied the other WIC benefits because they do not attend nutrition education activities. The Food Stamp Program enables low-income families to purchase nutritious foods at retail stores with electronic-based benefits. (See table 3.) While there is no legislative mandate for nutrition education, states have the option to use administrative funds to provide nutrition education as a component of the FSP known as Food Stamp Nutrition Education (FSNE). In order to provide nutrition education, the state agency administering FSP is responsible for submitting a state nutrition education plan for FSNE. However, state agencies that determine food stamp eligibility generally do not have the professional staff and experience to provide nutrition education. Therefore, the traditional providers of nutrition education under FSNE have mostly been affiliated with the Cooperative Extension Service, the same entity that administers EFNEP. In addition, state Nutrition Networks, which include government, nonprofit and business organizations, have cooperative agreements with FNS to identify and respond to nutrition problems at the state level. The NSLP and CACFP programs provide nutritionally balanced meals at low or no cost. (See table 4.) NSLP provides nutritionally balanced, federally subsidized meals for all children in public and nonprofit schools and residential child care institutions, with the size of the subsidy dependent on the income level of participating households. Similarly, CACFP provides nutritious meals and snacks to children in nonresidential child care and chronically impaired adults or adults age 60 or older in nonresidential day care facilities. FNS administers both programs at the federal level. At the state level, state education agencies typically administer and monitor the program. For NSLP, funding flows to the local school food authorities—offices responsible for managing the meals program. For CACFP, funding flows to sponsoring agencies, generally nonprofit agencies. Neither program has a legislative requirement to provide nutrition education, and unlike EFNEP and the other FNS programs, neither NSLP nor CACFP has funding specifically to support nutrition education. However, USDA established the Team Nutrition initiative in 1995 to promote nutrition education activities through these child nutrition programs. Specifically, Team Nutrition provides grants to states and develops and disseminates technical assistance materials on how to build school and community support for healthy eating, physical activity, and a healthy nutrition environment. However, while Team Nutrition, which was funded at $10 million in fiscal year 2002, funds the development of nutrition education messages and materials, it does not fund the staff and other resources needed to deliver nutrition education. As shown in figure 1, funding for nutrition education has grown over the last decade, primarily driven by increases in WIC and FSNE; funding for Team Nutrition and EFNEP has remained relatively stable or grown only slightly. Several actions are key to performance-based management and likely to contribute to successful nutrition education, based upon nutrition education research, prior GAO reports, and other documents on performance-based management. On the basis of this work, program officials should take these actions during program design, service delivery, and program monitoring and evaluation. During service delivery, nutrition educators need to assess participants’ needs and tailor services to meet those needs. Providing consistent messages through multiple delivery channels is also beneficial to encouraging a positive change in a participant’s nutritional behavior. Last, during program monitoring and evaluation, officials need to collect and monitor program service and participant data, assess outcomes, and evaluate whether the nutrition education has had the desired impact. Research indicates that, along with these key actions, environmental factors can have a significant positive or negative influence on the results of nutrition education and should be considered when designing, delivering, and monitoring and evaluating nutrition education efforts. We identified several key actions presented in general nutrition education research, prior GAO reports, and other documents on performance-based management that program officials should take during any nutrition education program. These actions reflect an ideal. However, if seriously addressed, these actions will increase the likelihood that the nutrition education will achieve its goals. These actions occur at three separate stages in a nutrition education program: program design, service delivery, and program monitoring and evaluation. However, the framework does not prescribe a single method of program design, service delivery, or program monitoring and evaluation; broad principles underpin these actions, which allows for flexibility, multiple approaches to nutrition education delivery, and various contexts in which nutrition education can take place. Figure 2 depicts these actions and the three stages in which they occur. According to this framework, during program design officials need to identify their specific targeted population, set clear program goals, and conduct strategic planning, which together provide the necessary foundation to help guide the rest of the actions. Identifying the target population can help program officials focus their goals and planning efforts appropriately. Program goals should be clear and measurable, so officials can determine whether the program is succeeding. Next, program officials need to conduct strategic and other planning efforts that detail how they intend to meet their nutrition education goals. For example, strategic plans should include the program goals, plus objectives, performance measures, and strategies that they will use to achieve the goals and objectives. In addition, plans should also include information on how program officials will coordinate and plan crosscutting efforts with other related federal programs. During service delivery, nutrition educators need to assess the needs of participants, tailor services to meet those needs, and deliver services of appropriate frequency and duration to meet program goals. In assessing participant needs, nutrition educators need to identify the nutritional, health, and learning needs of the participants and tailor the nutrition education activities to address those needs. For example, in providing services to non-English-speaking pregnant women, nutrition educators would need to provide services that addressed the nutritional and health needs associated with pregnancy as well as provide those services in the participant’s native language. Programs should support needs assessments of the targeted population receiving nutrition education services. Research indicates that individual participant assessments can be a powerful tool in providing services and are particularly important when the participant has a high level of nutritional risk, such as in cases of low hemoglobin levels. However, programs may also assess the needs of a selected group of participants, such as low-income women living in a given community, and tailor services to meet the group’s needs.