(P24-28-26) A Scoping Review of Systematic Reviews Exploring Effective Dietary Intervention Strategies in Low-Income Children Aged 2 to 18 Years

Objectives: About 14 percent of U.S. children experienced poverty in 2024. Children in poverty and low-income households face higher risk of food insecurity and adverse health outcomes than higher-income peers. Dietary interventions hold promise for mitigating these risks. Therefore, this scoping review aimed to summarize systematic reviews of effective dietary interventions in low-income children aged 2 to 18, focusing on intervention components, resource allocation, delivery methods, and cultural tailoring.

Methods: Cochrane Reviews, Embase, PubMed, PROSPERO, and Web of Science were searched up to August 2025 for eligible reviews of dietary interventions that directly provided food or improved food access in low-income populations. This review was reported according to the PRISMA-ScR Checklist and was limited to systematic reviews, offering broader insights to effective components and minimizing the siloed focus on a single health outcome often present in primary studies. Two independent reviewers used Covidence to screen articles for eligibility and perform data extraction with discrepancies resolved by a third individual. Descriptive analysis was used to summarize findings by intervention components, delivery settings, and study population.

Results: Four systematic reviews comprised the results, including 85 dietary interventions in their primary studies. Of the 40 interventions with at least one improved health outcome in low-income children, these studies provided food (n = 29) or meals (n = 11) to supplement intake or food supply. Additional intervention components included nutrition education (n = 7), micronutrient supplementation (n = 4), and health care access (n = 2). Delivery settings included schools (n = 14), health care (n = 5), or other (n = 9) settings, and 12 supplied foods to participant homes. Culturally tailored components, integrating local or traditional foods, were identified in seven studies.

Conclusions: This review summarized various components of effective dietary interventions that can be applied to future studies. These findings suggest interventions that improve health outcomes for low-income children often provide food delivered to homes or in schools with nutrition education and culturally tailored components.

Funding Sources: This research was supported by HATCH.