Public health efforts have emphasized changes to policies, systems, and environments (PSEs) to improve health behaviors for individuals and communities. Extension has increasingly emphasized these approaches, particularly for the work of Family and Consumer Sciences (FCS) agents. In part, this emphasis on PSEs in Extension has been driven by…

For children experiencing chronic stress, succeeding academically in the face of other obstacles can be daunting. Many efforts focused on supporting students fail to address nonacademic aspects of well-being that can impact their ability to succeed. Working to bridge the gap between research and practice, here we describe the results of an…

Social marketing campaigns are effective in promoting health behavior changes in individuals and communities. Mississippi State University Extension Service's (MSU Extension) Office of Nutrition Education launched a statewide social marketing campaign branded HappyHealthy to target nutrition and healthy lifestyle-related behaviors of Supplemental…

Heart and Hope (H&H) was designed to provide parenting education and social-emotional skills to children and parents exposed to intimate partner violence (IPV) in rural Nevada. The goal was to evaluate IPV efforts by measuring parent (N = 47) and children's (N =100) knowledge and behavior change around building healthy relationships and…

The active engagement of educators within the family and consumer sciences (FCS) discipline is an important area of interest to Cooperative Extension. Using job demands-resources theory (JD-R), this study was designed to investigate the impact of job demands and job resources on engagement of FCS educators. Results showed "job demands"…

This article introduces a process for computational text classification that can be used in a variety of qualitative research and evaluation settings. The process leverages supervised machine learning based on an implementation of a multinomial Bayesian classifier. Applied to a community of inquiry framework, the algorithm was used to identify…

This article introduces Q methodology, an idea-sorting activity that can help Extension improve outreach and education on new and contentious issues. Q methodology is a helpful tool when Extension professionals are confronted with controversial or complex resource management challenges. Through the analysis of a simple card-sorting exercise,…

Water availability is an important issue addressed by Cooperative Extension programs nationwide. Rapid population growth and urbanization present unique challenges and opportunities for Extension programming. In this study, we explored whether urban Extension audiences in Florida had unique characteristics that could be used to design tailored…

In 2014, land-grant institutions observed the centenary of the Smith-Lever Act, which established the Cooperative Extension program. Traditionally, Cooperative Extension has engaged in and disseminated findings from research in areas such as agricultural sciences and public policy, but rarely the visual arts, despite the prevalence of visual arts…

Increasing literacy among Extension professionals in every sector regarding potential regional impacts and adaptation strategies related to climate change is key to producing high-quality relevant programs addressing climate-related risks. Professionals in the forestry, agriculture, livestock, and coastal resources sectors attended the Southeast…

The eParenting: High-Tech Kids program addresses the positive role technology can play in parenting 9- to 14-year-olds. Delivered via middle schools' parent email lists, the program comprises 56 "posts" (articles) related to positive uses of digital media/technology in parenting preteens and teens. In 2016 alone, nearly 35,000 Wisconsin…

In this article, we explore a component of evidence-based programming--implementation quality--within an emerging international Extension context. Specifically, we examine how the traits, characteristics, and perceptions of 46 program facilitators influenced their support of maintaining implementation quality in a Nicaraguan youth violence and…

Speed meetings are an innovative approach to creating partnerships among Extension experts and university health researchers. Extension educators play a pivotal role in providing community-based education, building partnerships across the state, and disseminating local research on a community level. The Extension Health Research team at Michigan…

The explosive growth of citizen science has led to myriad independent projects in Minnesota and beyond. Here, we examine whether the field of citizen science would benefit from a center to coordinate efforts and help citizen science practitioners. We present results of a focus group--based needs assessment involving 52 practitioners active in…

Family life and Extension family and consumer science educators are encouraged to adapt existing curricula to effectively use with ethnically diverse audiences. Scholars have described different methods for culturally adapting programming; however, few have documented the process by which Extension educators may tackle this endeavor. The purpose…