5 A Day for better health--nine community research projects to increase fruit and vegetable consumption.

One of the national objectives in "Healthy People 2000" is for members of the public to increase their consumption of fruits and vegetables to five or more servings daily. The National Cancer Institute (NCI) began a nationwide campaign to achieve this objective in 1991. As part of this campaign, the NCI funded nine research studies in 1993. These projects are implementing and evaluating community-based programs designed to increase fruit and vegetable consumption among different segments of the population in Alabama, Arizona, Georgia, Louisiana, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, North Carolina, and Washington. The settings for these projects include the Special Supplement Food Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC Programs), churches, worksites, and schools. The projects are led by multidisciplinary teams and entail extensive collaboration among academic, governmental, private sector, and voluntary agencies within each State. The projects represent a model public health paradigm for conducting this type of research.