The Expanded Food and Nutrition Education Program (EFNEP) provides nutrition education to improve food resource management, nutrition practices, and food safety. However, the cost-effectiveness of EFNEP varies significantly between states and program components, ranging from $142 to $1,953 per participant. This is because recruitment and curriculum delivery are led by local volunteers without national standards, leading to differences in participants and program implementation across states.

1. The Expanded Food and Nutrition Education Program (EFNEP)
Summary:
Expanded Food and Nutrition Education Program (EFNEP) provides nutrition education to youth and adults in three main
areas: Food Resources Management Practices (FRMP), Nutrition Practices (NP), and Food Safety Practices (FSP).
Cost-effectiveness of the program is highly questionable as different states produce varying results with equally varying
costs per participant. Different components of the program also show varying rates of success concerning improving
nutrition practices and rate of returns to scale.
This varying rate of cost-effectiveness results from a large variation of socio-demographics among participants from
different states and a lack of national collaboration on curriculum delivery.
Background:
Started in 1969, this program is administered through the USDA’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture and is
completely independent of any other nutrition assistance program. EFNEP primarily focuses on improving various
aspects of nutrition ranging from participants’ ability to make healthy food choices, skills in food preparation, food
safety, and sanitation to managing a food budget. Within each state, the State Cooperative Extension staff provides
leadership to the program. The EFNEP program assistants and volunteers, who are usually local to the community they
serve, are responsible for recruiting the participants and delivering the EFNEP curriculum.
Issue:
While cost-effectiveness evaluations of EFNEP show that EFNEP is the most cost-effective federal nutrition education
program, there is a large range of cost-effectiveness by state suggesting there is opportunity for increased efficiency.
Different states spend different amounts of money per participant, and this is interesting considering that EFNEP is a
formula funded program (based on population). A national study showed that the USDA allocates on average
approximately 1 million dollars per state, with an average per participant at $520 per participant. The cost per
participant in individual states ranges from $142 to $1,953 – suggesting more opportunities to increase efficiency (see
graphic on page 2).
There is also a large range of effectiveness amongst the three components of the adult education program: Food
Resources Management Practices (FRMP), Nutrition Practices (NP), and Food Safety Practices (FSP). Each area is
evaluated with ten survey questions specific to each area. These questions are asked upon entry and exit of the
program, and that data is used to measure the effective delivery of the program components.
The percentage of total participants that demonstrated acceptable practices in food resource management (i.e. plan
meals, compare prices, does not run out of food and uses grocery lists) at entry of the program was 4% (3409 of 77531).
This improved to 22% (17019 of 77532) at the end of the program.
The percentage of total participants that demonstrated acceptable nutrition practices (i.e. plans meals, makes healthy
food choices, prepares food without adding salt reads nutrition labels and has children eat breakfast) at entry of the
program was 5% (4243 of 77531). This improved to 23% (17935 of 77532) at the end of the program.
The percentage of total participants that demonstrated acceptable food safety practices (i.e. thawing and storing foods
properly) at entry of the program was 16% (12196 of 77531). This improved to 50% (38827 of 77532) at the end of the
program.

2. Unfortunately, the percentage of total participants that demonstrated acceptable scores in all three categories - food
resource management, nutrition practices, and food safety – at entry of the program was 0% (324 of 77531), and this
only improved to 6% (4877 of 77532) at the end of the program.
At the national level, the FRMP index exhibits statistically significant increasing returns to scale. It was found that a 1%
increase in the budget allocated to the state or territory increases the FRMP-related outcomes by more than 2%.
Similarly, the NP index exhibits statistically significant constant returns to scale, meaning that one percentage increase in
budget would increase the nutrition practices related outcomes by only one percentage. For the FSP outcome index, the
effect of budget allocation is essentially zero, implying decreasing returns to scale.
Explanation:
The variations in cost-effectiveness across the different program components, individual states with respect to cost per
participant, and individual states with respect to returns to scale can be explained through multiple variables.
First, community volunteers are left to recruit and administer the program, and the main way of recruiting families to by
using the list of local families already benefiting from another federal nutrition program (SNAP, WIC, etc.). This leads to
a variation in socio-demographics among participants from different states.
Second, the curriculum delivery is left as the responsibility of the same volunteers in charge of recruitment. While these
individuals do receive training and leadership from state extension staff, no national collaboration or mandates for
curriculum delivery is provided. This leads to different styles, approaches, meetings, and modes of delivery – some of
which are more successful than others. We know this because we have identified individual states that are more
effective than others.
Visual Aids:
By State, Maximum Average Cost per Participant for Expanded Food and Nutrition Education Program: