Strengthening the Public Health Impacts of Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program
Key Opportunities for the Next Farm Bill
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
Report Publish Date: July 2021
This report recommends evidence-based federal policy changes that could strengthen the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program’s impacts on public health in the United States.
Primary Takeaways
Among the author’s recommendations are the following:
- Congress can increase SNAP participation by boosting equity, making sure socially disadvantaged groups are visible in national data, increasing synergies at different levels of government, and using pilot studies funded by USDA to better understand how to make SNAP processes work for people.
- Congress can make SNAP benefits more adequately meet people’s needs by refining how benefits are calculated, sustaining the pandemic-era 15% benefits increase, and evaluating the impact of the increase.
- Stronger stocking standards and state waivers to pilot innovative approaches could help ensure SNAP-authorized retailers promote healthier food.
- Raising consumer awareness and identifying the best mechanisms for online ordering and delivery could increase the number of retailers authorized to take SNAP purchases online.
Overview and Objectives
SNAP is an important line of defense against food insecurity in the U.S., and it also has the potential to improve public health by giving more people access to healthy foods. At the time of writing, the Farm Bill, which authorizes SNAP, was coming up for renewal in 2023. The authors wanted to lay out policies that could be incorporated into the bill to enhance the program’s impact on public health.
Hypothesis or Approach
The authors summarize the evidence for SNAP’s effectiveness and describe evidence-based areas of opportunity for strengthening its health impact. A virtual convening of experts in February 2021 informed the report.
How This Influences Change
“The size and reach of SNAP suggests that policy changes via the next Farm Bill can meaningfully promote food and nutrition security and improve public health, while having additional co-benefits, such as lifting SNAP participants out of poverty, reducing health care expenditures, increasing purchases of fruits and vegetables, expanding local and regional food economies, creating jobs, promoting opportunity in rural and tribal communities, promoting racial equity, and, with more targeted efforts and research, mitigating climate change,” the authors write.
Research: Go Deeper
For decades, the federal nutrition safety net—administered by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA)—has served as the nation’s first line of defense for reducing food insecurity, where access to adequate food for an active, healthy life is limited by a lack of money or other resources (See Key
Terms). The USDA Economic Research Service (ERS) reported food insecurity affected 10.5% of the U.S. population at some point in 2019, which was down from a peak of 14.9% in 2011; illustrating the length of time—about eight years—that it took to return to pre-recession (2007) levels. However, due to the COVID-19 pandemic and associated economic ramifications, food insecurity is now estimated to have jumped to the highest level in decades, affecting over 20% of Americans (approximately 1 in 4 households). Both before and during the pandemic, food insecurity has been disproportionately higher among low-income and rural populations, as well as communities of color.
The largest USDA nutrition assistance program, often referred to as the cornerstone of the nation’s nutrition safety net, is the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). As an entitlement program, SNAP is designed to expand as incomes fall, enabling the program to respond quickly when need increases. Over the last decade, the federal nutrition safety net has adapted to focus on improving diet quality and preventing obesity. This shift is important given that, where food insecurity is high, often so is obesity. Obesity affects one quarter of all adults, about half of the Black and Latinx adult population, and one fifth of children, including about a quarter of Black and Latinx children. Native American adolescents are 30% more likely than non-Hispanic white adolescents to be obese and Native American adults are more than 50% more likely to be obese than non-Hispanic whites. Nearly half of adults are projected to have obesity by 2030 and a majority of children will have obesity by the time they reach age 35.
Given the reach of the federal nutrition safety net, and its unprecedented use during the COVID-19 pandemic, efforts to strengthen the public health impact of this suite of 15 federal nutrition assistance programs provide critical opportunities to improve food security, diet quality, health, and well-being of millions of income-eligible Americans. This report will identify key opportunities in the next Farm Bill to strengthen the public health impacts of SNAP, while also more intentionally and effectively enhancing the program’s co-benefits.
The opportunities put forth are evidence-based policy changes that have the greatest potential to improve SNAP participants’ nutritional status and health. The report focuses on maximizing efforts over the next two years to help translate research into action and—where needed—address critical knowledge gaps. Already, Congress has acted swiftly in response to the COVID-19 pandemic to expand and extend the reach of SNAP. The continued pandemic response and associated economic recovery may necessitate the need for even bolder changes to SNAP, either in the next Farm Bill or even sooner through stimulus relief activities coming from Congress or executive actions.
Healthy Eating Research, July 2021
Research Team
This study and report was conducted and created by the following people:
- Bleich S
- Sullivan K
- Broad Leib E
- Dunn C
- Woteki C
- Lazarus Yaroch A
- Fleischhacker S
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