Policy, systems, and environmental interventions to improve diet and diet-related health outcomes in infancy and early childhood: An umbrella review

This project aims to evaluate the current scientific evidence base on the most effective policy, systems, and enviornment (PSE) interventions to improve food access, food security, diet quality, and prevent childhood obesity in early childhood. The focus of this review is policies and programs for children from birth to age five. This may include WIC, home visiting programs, cash transfers, and early childcare education (i.e., CACFP, HeadStart, Childcare licensing, and Farm to ECE) policies and processes. The writing teams will conduct an umbrella review to identify systematic reviews, meta-analyses, umbrella reviews, scoping reviews, and narrative reviews published from 2010 to present. Key reports from governing bodies, such as the 2020 and the 2025 DGAC scientific reports, may also be considered. The outcomes of interest for this project include weight, diet quality and nutrition, and food access (including food security). We will also analyze findings from the umbrella review to pinpoint areas where knowledge is lacking. The team will document research gaps as outlined in the review articles, as well as draw on their collective expertise to surface additional research gaps and think creatively about new questions that have not yet been asked. This umbrella review is part of a larger project, funded by Healthy Eating Research, a national program of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, to develop a national research agenda for PSE interventions and strategies to promote food and nutrition security, optimal diet quality, and achieve healthy weights among U.S. children, adolescents, and families.