Search

Participation in the federally subsidized school breakfast program often falls well below its lunchtime counterpart. To increase take-up, many districts have implemented Breakfast in the Classroom (BIC), offering breakfast directly to students at the start of the school day. Beyond increasing participation, advocates claim BIC improves academic performance, attendance, and engagement. Others caution BIC has deleterious effects on child weight. We use the implementation of BIC in New York City (NYC) to estimate its impact on meals program participation, body mass index (BMI), achievement, and attendance. While we find large effects on participation, our findings provide no evidence of hoped-for gains in academic performance, or of feared increases in obesity. The policy case for BIC will depend upon reductions in hunger and food insecurity for disadvantaged children, or its longer-term effects.

This article shares insights and reflections from an experience funding and evaluating the Healthy Neighborhoods Initiative, a $22 million, six-year, place-based effort by two grantmaking foundations across nine diverse communities in New York state. An external, mixed methods evaluation provided feedback to the funders on achievements, challenges, and learnings. Local partnership structures building on existing relationships and those that had or could quickly build trust of key actors and community residents were more effective at sustaining strategic activities and engagement. While working at the community level had many benefits, it was difficult to leverage strategies to create policy changes at the city or state level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Smoke-free housing policies are intended to reduce the deleterious health effects of secondhand smoke exposure, but there is limited evidence regarding their health impacts. We examined associations between implementation of a federal smoke-free housing rule by the New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA) and pediatric Medicaid claims for asthma, lower respiratory tract infections, and upper respiratory tract infections in the early post–policy intervention period. We used geocoded address data to match children living in tax lots with NYCHA buildings (exposed to the policy) to children living in lots with other subsidized housing (unexposed to the policy). We constructed longitudinal difference-in-differences models to assess relative changes in monthly rates of claims between November 1, 2015, and December 31, 2019 (the policy was introduced on July 30, 2018). We also examined effect modification by baseline age group (≤2, 3–6, or 7–15 years). In New York City, introduction of a smoke-free policy was not associated with lower rates of Medicaid claims for any outcomes in the early postpolicy period. Exposure to the smoke-free policy was associated with slightly higher than expected rates of outpatient upper respiratory tract infection claims (incidence rate ratio = 1.05, 95% confidence interval: 1.01, 1.08), a result most pronounced among children aged 3–6 years. Ongoing monitoring is essential to understanding long-term health impacts of smoke-free housing policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: In July 2018, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development passed a rule requiring public housing authorities to implement smoke-free housing (SFH) policies. We measured secondhand smoke (SHS) exposure immediately before, and repeatedly up to 36 months post-SFH policy implementation in a purposeful sample of 21 New York City (NYC) high-rise buildings (>15 floors): 10 NYC Housing Authority (NYCHA) buildings subject to the policy and 11 privately managed buildings in which most residents received housing vouchers (herein "Section 8").Aims and Methods: We invited participants from nonsmoking households (NYCHA n = 157, Section-8 n = 118) to enroll in a longitudinal air monitoring study, measuring (1) nicotine concentration with passive, bisulfate-coated filters, and (2) particulate matter (PM2.5) with low-cost particle sensors. We also measured nicotine concentrations and counted cigarette butts in common areas (n = 91 stairwells and hallways). We repeated air monitoring sessions in households and common areas every 6 months, totaling six post-policy sessions.Results: After 3 years, we observed larger declines in nicotine concentration in NYCHA hallways than in Section-8, [difference-in-difference (DID) = -1.92 µg/m3 (95% CI -2.98, -0.87), p = .001]. In stairwells, nicotine concentration declines were larger in NYCHA buildings, but the differences were not statistically significant [DID= -1.10 µg/m3 (95% CI -2.40, 0.18), p = .089]. In households, there was no differential change in nicotine concentration (p = .093) or in PM2.5 levels (p = .385).Conclusions: Nicotine concentration reductions in NYCHA common areas over 3 years may be attributable to the SFH policy, reflecting its gradual implementation over this time.Implications: Continued air monitoring over multiple years has demonstrated that SHS exposure may be declining more rapidly in NYCHA common areas as a result of SFH policy adherence. This may have positive implications for improved health outcomes among those living in public housing, but additional tracking of air quality and studies of health outcomes are needed. Ongoing efforts by NYCHA to integrate the SFH policy into wider healthier-homes initiatives may increase policy compliance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While advocates argue that gentrification changes the neighborhood food environment critical to children's diet and health, we have little evidence documenting such changes or the consequences for their health outcomes. Using rich longitudinal, individual-level data on nearly 115,000 New York City children, including egocentric measures of their food environment and BMI, we examine the link between neighborhood demographic change ("gentrification"), children's access to restaurants and supermarkets, and their weight outcomes. We find that children in rapidly gentrifying neighborhoods see increased access to fast food and wait-service restaurants and reduced access to corner stores and supermarkets compared to those in non-gentrifying areas. Boys and girls have higher BMI following gentrification, but only boys are more likely to be obese or overweight. We find public housing moderates the relationship between gentrification and weight, as children living in public housing are less likely to be obese or overweight. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]