| Sumario: | Utah's SNAP-Ed program Create Better Health (CBH),provides programming to improve healthy behaviors among low-income adults, including an 8-class nutrition education series. Due to the demand for SNAP-Ed education and limited funds, CBH conducted a study to determine the minimum number classes in a series that would influence significant behavior change. The study's objective was to better understand how the number of classes attended impacts behavior to identify the most cost-effective duration of nutrition education for limited-resource adults in Utah. A nonexperimental study design was used. The study sample included CBH nutrition education series participants from June 2020 to June 2022. Using a pre-post survey design, participants self-reported a variety of nutrition, physical activity, and food resource management behaviors before and after participating in the series. Descriptive statistics were collected and analyzed. Responses to questions about health behaviors (eg, stretching food dollars to last the entire month and using MyPlate to make food choices) were compared between groups who participated in 1-3 classes, 4 classes, 5-7 classes, and 8 or more. Differences among groups were analyzed using an Independent Samples Kruskal-Wallis Test. Significance was defined as p <0.05. Bonferroni correction was used in pairwise comparisons. There were 151 study participants. Analysis indicated that participants who only attended 1-3 classes showed significantly less improvement in 4 behaviors compared to participants who attended 4 or more classes: stretching food dollars (p= 0.021), choosing a variety of foods (p=0.023), shopping with a grocery list (p=0.018), and following USDA food safety recommendations (p=<0.001). Additionally, no significant differences among any assessed behavior occurred among participants in 4 classes compared to those that participated in 5-7 classes, or 8 or more classes. This study's findings suggest that a 4-class series would provide a similar impact on healthy behaviors as an 8-class series. Offering a 4-class series requires fewer resources and allows for more series to be offered without losing significant behavior outcomes. Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program - Education
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