The national school breakfast and lunch programs administered by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) are cornerstone federal nutrition assistance programs. School meals are one of the healthiest sources of foods for school-age children, which is significant as some children receive up to half of their daily calories at school. Policy opportunities in 2023 More
Keywords: Nutrition standards, School meal programs
Date: February 2023
Resource Type: Report
Focus Areas: Nutrition Policy & Programs School & After School
Early childhood education (ECE) settings play an important role in child dietary intake and excess weight gain. Policy, systems, and environment (PSE) approaches have potential to reduce disparities in children at higher risk for obesity. The purpose of this review was to (1) characterize the inclusion of populations at higher risk for obesity in ECE More
Keywords: Child Care/Preschool
SNAP was a critical component of the COVID-19 pandemic response. The beginning of the pandemic saw the largest increase in applications in the program’s history, and the pandemic fundamentally altered how SNAP agencies deliver benefits, interact with participants, and provide supportive services. The goal of this research was to examine SNAP implementation during the first More
This study aimed to describe state agencies’ implementation of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic, barriers and facilitators to SNAP implementation, and recommendations to improve SNAP implementation. This study was qualitative, using 7 semistructured, virtual focus groups in April 2021 with state-level SNAP administrators and supportive services More
In the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), families may temporarily lose benefits for which they are still eligible because of administrative issues. This lapse in benefits, referred to as churning, increases the risk of food insecurity for families, which is linked with poorer health. This study examined the rate of churning among SNAP participants with More
Pandemic EBT is a new program, operating since March 2020, that provides children who receive free or reduced-price meals with a voucher to purchase groceries for an amount equal to the value of school meals missed due to pandemic-related school closures. This program is being considered as a model for future nutritional assistance programs. Although More
Keywords: COVID-19, Food insecurity
During the COVID-19 pandemic, record numbers of households, including nearly 14 million children, reported not having enough to eat. In response, the federal government enacted a set of far-reaching relief measures, expanding both USDA nutrition assistance programs as well as other economic safety net measures. Within a sample of low-wage workers with children, this research More
Keywords: COVID-19, Food insecurity
Date: July 2022
Resource Type: Grant Summary
Focus Areas: Diet Quality & Healthy Weight Food Access Nutrition Policy & Programs
Food price inflation is an adverse outcome of COVID-19 that makes nutrition security more difficult for low-income families with children. School closures and pandemic-related assistance programs placed additional strains on the retail food system, which may have further amplified inflationary pressure on the cost of foods needed to support a healthy diet. The goal of More
Keywords: COVID-19, Supermarket
Date: July 2022
Resource Type: Grant Summary
Focus Areas: Nutrition Policy & Programs Pricing & Economics
Under the Families First Coronavirus Response Act of March 2020, changes were made to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) (including emergency allotments, meal replacement benefits during school closures for children, and SNAP operation waivers), which could have had a protective effect on nutritional quality of SNAP households’ food purchases. Specific aims are to (1) More
The Child and Adult Care Food Program (CACFP), the largest U.S. nutrition program for childcare, provides tiered reimbursements to family childcare homes (FCCHs) to serve healthy foods to a large proportion of children from households with low incomes. Due to COVID-19, all FCCHs on CACFP temporarily received the higher Tier I reimbursement rate. The aims More