P2B279: Lessons for Early Childhood Healthy Nutrition Messaging

Background: Pregnancy and early childhood are an opportune time to engage and educate families around optimal early feeding practices and appropriate nutrition. However, many families and organizations report inconsistent nutrition/health messaging for pregnant people and for caregivers of infants and toddlers. The American Academy of Pediatrics Institute for Healthy Childhood Weight (Institute) partnered with Marketing for Change (M4C) to try to identify and test messages and materials that could be used synergistically across healthcare providers and other family support providers that interact with pregnant persons and caregivers of young children.

Methods: On March 25, 2019 a key stakeholder meeting was held with national health authority and family support organizations to identify key content areas where synergistic messages could be developed for deployment at key developmental stages via a variety of health care and family support providers. Breakout sessions, consensus activities and prioritizations exercises were utilized in this meeting to coalesce on direction and recommendation moving forward. See Figure 1. From April 13 to April 23, 2020, M4C conducted 33 remote, one-hour, in-depth interviews with low-income pregnant women and moms of both infants and toddlers with self-reported unhealthy lifestyle behaviors, including high intake of sugary drinks and processed, unhealthy meals. Participants were recruited from three markets in both rural and urban areas, which included Birmingham, AL, Baltimore, MD and San Antonio, TX and reflected the identified stages (pregnancy, 0-6 months, 6-9 months, 9-12 months and 12-24 months). The participants represented diversity in terms of race/ethnicity, number of children and rural/urban. At least half of the participants in every segment qualified for WIC. The interviews focused on understanding behavioral determinants and attitudes around message concepts for the defined topics and ages and stages.

Results: The qualitative data was analyzed to identify information related to pain points, motivating factors, needs, and attitudes and preferences related to message concepts within each developmental stage. Differences in demographics including race/ethnicity, population density, education level and new mom versus veteran moms were were explored. The research uncovered key behavioral determinants that create both opportunities and challenges (See figure 2) as well as message specific recommendations for each developmental stage. Patient-facing resources were developed based upon the findings from the parent interviews.

Conclusion: The results from the parent in-depth interviews indicated there are new message frames that might resonate better and motivate parents regarding nutrition behaviors. The Institute and M4C developed a suite a resources informed by the key stakeholders and parent research to support amplification of consistent and motivating nutrition messages during this critical period from permanency through age 2. Utilization of these tangible resources across multiple sectors and during key developmental stages could help to synergize messages around the desired behaviors that optimize early nutrition and health.