ENHANCE: Enhancing Nutrition in Home-Visiting programs to Advance pareNt-Child health

ENHANCE: Enhancing Nutrition in Home-Visiting programs to Advance pareNt-Child health”, is a multi-year research initiative designed to develop and test new approaches to improving nutrition and reducing food insecurity among families in Massachusetts, funded by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI) under a UG3/UH3 mechanism for a project entitled, Dr. Marie-France Hivert and Dr. Maggie McConnell, are collaborating with the Children's Trust Massachusetts, MassGeneral Hospital, Healthy Families Massachusetts (HFM), and the Greater Boston Food Bank on this effort.

ENHANCE aims to strengthen nutrition services within the Healthy Families Massachusetts Home Visiting Programs, which include 23 sites across the state serving first-time parents, many of which are low-income and food insecure. In the first two years, the project is piloting a six-week nutrition curriculum series that builds practical cooking and nutrition skills, alongside partnerships with local food pantries to deliver healthy food boxes to participating families. In the subsequent phase, the project will assess the effectiveness and delivery of the program across all HFM sites in Massachusetts.

Through this integrated, systems focused approach, ENHANCE seeks to improve access to nutritious food while supporting sustainable, community based strategies to improve parent and child health.