Jonathan Cantor (
Robin Beckman is a resident programmer in information services, RAND Corporation, in Santa Monica.
Health Aff (Millwood). 2020 Aug;39(8):1386-1394. doi: 10.1377/hlthaff.2019.01309.
The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) is the largest US food and nutrition assistance program, tasked with improving food security among low-income households. Another federal effort to improve food access is the Healthy Food Financing Initiative (HFFI), which invested tens of millions of dollars to incentivize healthy food retail outlets in areas lacking access to nutritious, fresh food. We explore the intersection of these programs, testing the impact of a new, HFFI-financed full-service supermarket on SNAP participants in an urban food desert. After the supermarket's opening, SNAP participants' food security improved and intake of added sugars declined in the intervention neighborhood, but both were unchanged in a comparison neighborhood without a new supermarket. Intervention neighborhood participants also experienced relative declines in the percentage of daily calories from solid fats, alcoholic beverages, and added sugars. Our findings suggest that HFFI amplifies the effects of SNAP participation on improving food security and dietary quality in food deserts.
补充营养援助计划(SNAP)是美国最大的食品和营养援助计划,旨在提高低收入家庭的粮食安全水平。另一个改善食品获取的联邦努力是健康食品融资倡议(HFFI),该倡议投资了数千万美元,以激励在缺乏营养、新鲜食品的地区开设健康食品零售店。我们探讨了这些项目的交集,测试了一个新的、由 HFFI 资助的全服务超市对城市食品沙漠中 SNAP 参与者的影响。在超市开业后,干预社区中 SNAP 参与者的粮食安全状况得到改善,添加糖的摄入量下降,但在没有新超市的对照社区中,这两项指标均没有变化。干预社区的参与者也经历了来自固体脂肪、酒精饮料和添加糖的每日卡路里百分比的相对下降。我们的研究结果表明,HFFI 放大了 SNAP 参与对改善食品沙漠中粮食安全和饮食质量的影响。