BACKGROUND Although it has long been known that a broad range of factors beyond medical diagnoses affect health and health services use, it has been unclear whether additional income can decrease health service use. We examined whether Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) receipt is associated with subsequent nursing home entry among low income older adults. METHODS We examined th...

OBJECTIVE This article investigates the association between Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) participation and child food security by using data from the largest national survey of the food security of SNAP participants to date. METHODS The analysis used a survey of nearly 3000 households with children and a quasi-experimental research design that consisted of 2 sets of compar...

The second article, by Maria Cancian, Eunhee Han, and Jennifer L. Noyes from IRP, draws on data from Wisconsin to look in detail at participation in and disconnection from a number of public sources of support other than TANF cash assistance. The authors’ primary definition of disconnection is no program participation (defined as TANF, Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program [SNAP], subsidize...

OBJECTIVE To examine the opinions of stakeholders on strategies to improve dietary quality of Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) participants. DESIGN Participants answered a thirty-eight-item web-based survey assessing opinions and perceptions of SNAP and programme policy changes. SETTING USA SUBJECTS Survey of 522 individuals with stakeholder interest in SNAP, conducted in Oc...

Individuals receiving monthly benefits through the U.S. Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) often fall short of food at the end of the month and some report feelings of hunger. To investigate this situation, we used time diaries from the 2006-08 American Time Use Survey and Eating & Health Module to identify the timing of days where respondents reported no eating occurrences. Analy...

Recent research has shown that the typical Supplemental Food Assistance Program (SNAP) family falls short in meeting the Thrifty Food Plan (TFP) nutritional guidelines that underlie the SNAP even when they typically have sufficient monetary resources to eat a healthful diet (i.e. to follow the TFP recommendations). However, the TFP does not consider labor cost. This study uses a basic labor eco...

We analyze the role played by Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) in alleviating or exacerbating inequality across racial and ethnic groups food expenditures resources needed to meet basic needs (the “food resource gap”). To do this, we propose a simple framework that decomposes differences SNAP benefit transfer levels into three components: eligibility, participation, generosity. ...