Development of an Online Nutrition Education eLearning Program Targeted to SNAP‐Ed Eligible Adults

This study describes the process by which we developed an innovative eLearning program targeted to SNAP‐Ed eligible individuals including: curriculum, personnel involved, resources needed, and timeline. eLearning can provide cost‐effective and efficient nutrition education for low‐income populations by capitalizing on trends in Internet access/use and mitigating barriers to attending traditional face‐to‐face classes. We based our program, titled Food eTalk, strategically on a face‐to‐face nutrition education curriculum, titled Food Talk. Food Talk is grounded in the Health Belief Model and was developed and validated in Georgia with low‐income adults. To strongly ground our program in theory, we drew on theories of eLearning and adult education as we converted the content of the Food Talk curriculum into online lessons, games, and interactive activities. To tailor the content to meet the current needs of the target audience, we conducted a systematic formative and process evaluation including a series of focus groups and key informant interviews with a prototype of Food eTalk and subsequent focus groups with the completed Food eTalk program focusing on content, format, literacy, and usage pattern. Food eTalk is tailored to our unique Southern USA culture including culturally relevant images, recipes, and Southern‐accented voiceover. Throughout the development process, we have identified and added essential team members including content experts, instructional design experts, professional eLearning designers, website developer, videographers, and actors (voice and on‐screen). Much of this process has been trial‐and‐error as there were no resources available to direct exactly how to develop such an innovative program for this audience. We built a responsive design website (foodtalk.org) to serve as a user‐friendly portal to access the lessons, initially on desktop and later on smartphone devices. The Food eTalk lessons and the portal (website) were regularly updated to comply with American Disability Act standards and designed to alleviate potential barriers of low literacy. The development and evaluation process of Food eTalk required budget items that are not typically considered in traditional face‐to‐face nutrition education programming (e.g., high‐level design and technical experts, a learning management system, eLearning authoring software, and server space). The findings and lessons learned from the Food eTalk development process suggest that it is critical to include all key team members from the start, build effective communication systems between key team members, understand that resources needed are significantly different than those of developing traditional face‐to‐face programs, employ a carefully designed formative and process evaluation, and budget ample time for both design and technical development. Researchers and funding agencies should consider such potential implications in developing an innovative evidence‐based eLearning nutrition education program to an increasingly tech‐savvy low‐income audience. Support or Funding Information This study was funded by USDA SNAP‐Ed