Michele Polacsek, Ph.D., M.P.H., professor of public health and director of UNE’s Center for Excellence in Public Health, is co- Investigator on a newly awarded research project to study titled “Understanding the Nutritional Impact of Pandemic-Era Food Assistance Policies in Low Income and Rural Populations” The grant, an R01 funded by the National Institute of Nursing Research, will bring over $660,000 to UNE over 4 years (09/21/2023 –06/30/2027) in a subcontract to the UNE Center for Excellence in Public Health
The overall objective of the research is to evaluate the effects of the end of COVID-19 pandemic-era Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) emergency allotments on the healthfulness of participant food purchases, identify potential inequities in these effects across populations from historically underserved communities, and explore how concurrent socioecological factors influenced food choice after this policy change. The project will leverage a natural experiment and employ a mixed-methods research design.
SNAP provides financial benefits for grocery purchases to nearly 42 million lower-income individuals in the U.S. and is a vital source of food assistance for health disparity populations, including rural households, Black and Hispanic households, and households with low economic stability (e.g., those experiencing poverty or unemployment). SNAP benefits increased substantially starting in March 2020, most of which was driven by temporary emergency allotments (i.e., supplemental benefits), to bolster food security in response to the COVID-19 pandemic and ensure participants could afford a healthy diet. These emergency benefits expired nationally in March 2023, a policy change that is estimated to have reduced benefits by an average of $175 per household, a ~33% decline. The sudden end of SNAP emergency allotments represents the largest ever universal reduction in SNAP benefits and could change participants’ food purchasing patterns in ways that adversely affect their health. This benefit cliff could drive households to reduce total food purchased, make unhealthy substitutions (e.g., substitute cheaper, shelf-stable, processed foods for fresh produce), or select less healthy foods to cope with increased stress. These effects may be worse for rural, Black, Hispanic, and economically disadvantaged households due to existing structural inequities that make it harder for these populations to access and afford healthy foods. Given that these groups bear a disproportionate burden of nutrition-related chronic disease, this policy change may therefore widen existing health disparities. Research is thus needed to evaluate effects of the end of SNAP emergency allotments on the nutritional quality of participants’ food purchases overall and across these historically underserved communities. It is also important to examine how SNAP households’ food purchases were influenced by concurrent individual- and system-level factors (e.g., participation in other assistance programs, price inflation) to comprehensively understand the impact of this policy change.