Formerly with Department of Agricultural and Applied Economics, University of Georgia, Athens, GA, United States of America.
Formerly with Economic Research Service, U.S. Department of Agriculture, Washington, DC, United States of America.
PLoS One. 2020 Dec 18;15(12):e0240263. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0240263. eCollection 2020.
The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) provides millions of low-income Americans food benefits and other forms of nutrition assistance. Evidence indicates that SNAP reduces food insecurity. However, there is a concern that the food benefit may increase the demand for less healthy foods more than healthier foods, thereby reducing the overall nutritional quality of the participant's food basket. This paper aims to examine the association of SNAP participation with the nutritional quality of food-at-home purchases of low-income households and to investigate the potential heterogeneity among consumers with different levels of nutrition attitude. This analysis used food purchase data from the USDA National Household Food Acquisition and Purchase Survey (FoodAPS). Our study sample included 2,218 low-income households, of which 1,184 are SNAP participants, and 1,034 are income-eligible nonparticipants. Multivariate regressions were performed to explore the SNAP-nutritional quality association. A household's nutrition attitude was measured using its response to a question on whether the household searched for nutrition information online in the last 2 months. Households that affirmed they had an online nutrition search were treated as nutrition-oriented households (21.2% of the low-income sample), and households that did not were considered less nutrition-oriented households (78.8%). For robustness, we also created an alternative nutrition attitude measure based on reported use of the nutrition facts label. We found that among less nutrition-oriented households, SNAP participants had a statistically significant 0.097 points (p = 0.018) lower Guiding Stars rating than low-income nonparticipants. However, there was no significant SNAP-nutritional quality association among nutrition-oriented households. In conclusion, SNAP participation was associated with lower nutritional quality of food purchases among less nutrition-oriented households, but not among nutrition-oriented households. The results suggest that the intended nutritional benefits of restrictions on purchases of healthy foods may not reach the subgroup of nutrition-oriented SNAP participants.
补充营养援助计划（SNAP）为数百万美国低收入者提供食品福利和其他形式的营养援助。有证据表明，SNAP 减少了食物无保障。然而，有人担心食品福利可能会增加对不太健康食品的需求，超过对更健康食品的需求，从而降低参与者食品篮子的整体营养质量。本文旨在研究 SNAP 参与与低收入家庭自宅食品购买的营养质量之间的关联，并探讨具有不同营养态度水平的消费者之间的潜在异质性。本分析使用了美国农业部国家家庭食品获取和购买调查（FoodAPS）的食品购买数据。我们的研究样本包括 2218 户低收入家庭，其中 1184 户是 SNAP 参与者，1034 户是符合收入条件的非参与者。多元回归用于探索 SNAP-营养质量关联。家庭的营养态度通过其对过去两个月是否在网上搜索营养信息的问题的回答来衡量。家庭如果肯定他们在网上搜索过营养信息，则被视为营养导向家庭（低收入样本的 21.2%），否则被认为是不太营养导向家庭（78.8%）。为了稳健性，我们还根据报告使用营养事实标签创建了替代营养态度衡量标准。我们发现，在不太营养导向的家庭中，SNAP 参与者的指导星评级比低收入非参与者低 0.097 分（p=0.018），具有统计学意义。然而，在营养导向家庭中，没有显著的 SNAP-营养质量关联。总之，SNAP 参与与不太营养导向家庭购买的食品营养质量较低有关，但与营养导向家庭无关。结果表明，对健康食品购买的限制的预期营养益处可能无法惠及具有营养导向的 SNAP 参与者亚组。
