The COVID-19 pandemic is worsening the disparities in food access in the United States. As consumers have been increasingly using grocery online ordering services to limit their exposure to the COVID-19 virus, participants of federal nutrition assistance programs lack the online benefit redemption option. With the support of the US Department of Agriculture (USDA), retailers More

Recent changes to the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) Cash-Value Benefit (CVB), which provides participants with money to spend on fruits and vegetables, have the potential to reduce disparities in healthy food access and food insecurity that were exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic. However, few studies have examined how the More

COVID-related school closures across the United States in spring 2020 disrupted the school meal programs that provide critical access to healthy food for millions of children — including children in elementary and middle school and adolescents in high school — from households with low incomes, leading to increased food insecurity. The United States Department of 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

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

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

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

Recent cash-value benefit (CVB) increases could increase fruit and vegetable (FV) access of children in Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC). Yet, little is known about impacts of CVB changes on participant access to FVs, participant awareness and satisfaction of CVB changes, and implementation successes and challenges of WIC State agencies More

This is a unique opportunity to assess the longitudinal impact of COVID-19 related relief and recovery policies and existing safety net supports among economically disadvantaged California families raising young children. The goals of this study are to 1) characterize participant’s awareness and understanding of COVID-19 related relief supports such as Pandemic EBT, free school meals, More