Healthy food incentive providers (i.e., gusnip grantees) have varying capacity and resources to carry out comprehensive evaluation and reporting and often face barriers to implementation

The ntae aims to maximize the effectiveness and efficiency of gusnip projects in meeting gusnip priorities, increasing fruit and vegetable purchases, and improving the nutrition of participating households. The collective group of partners forming the ntae include a broad and deep cross-section of experts in the area of healthy food access, food insecurity, food incentives, and evaluation and reporting. The ntae will yield a streamlined and integrative clearinghouse for training and technical assistance (t & TA), and reporting and evaluation (r & e), to support gusnip grantees over the next four years toward the intended impact of improving health outcomes of snap households and decreasing associated health care costs. The proposed ntae center has two key goals: (1) develop systems, infrastructure, and collaborative relationships using a community-informed approach to support gusnip grantees r & e while building sustainability and capacity; and (2) maximize effectiveness and efficiency of gusnip projects in meeting gusnip priorities, increasing fruit and vegetable purchases, and improving the nutrition of participating households. Strategies for the ntae will be rooted in a collaborative format with USDA and other stakeholders, using a bottom-up approach informed by needs and capacity of prospective gusnip grantees as well as existing and yet to be developed technology that will provide infrastructure for collecting key information related to t & TA and r & e. The overarching benefit of the ntae will be increased capacity of gusnip grantees and reporting of process and outcome metrics that will help inform the continued efforts of healthy food incentive programs.