Impact of the expiration of temporary pandemic SNAP benefits on the healthfulness of supermarket food purchases

临时大流行 SNAP 福利到期对超市食品采购健康性的影响

• 批准号: 10835393
• 负责人: Joshua Petimar
• 金额: $ 84.85万
• 依托单位: HARVARD PILGRIM HEALTH CARE, INC.
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 财政年份: 2023
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2023-09-21 至 2027-06-30
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10835393
• 关键词: Affect; Black race; COVID-19 pandemic; Characteristics; Chronic Disease; Communities; Data; Economics; Emergency Situation; Employment; Enrollment; Ensure; Ethnic Origin; Food; Food Access; Food Preferences; Future; Health; Health Food; Hispanic; Household; Individual; Inequity; Interruption; Intervention; Interview; Link; Low Income Population; Low income; Measures; Methods; Natural experiment; Not Hispanic or Latino; Nutritional; Participant; Pattern; Persons; Policies; Policy Maker; Population; Poverty; Price; Process; Quasi-experiment; Race; Research; Research Design; Rural; Sales; Series; Source; Stress; Structure; Supermarket; Surveys; System; Time; Underserved Population; Unemployment; cohort; cooking; coping; economic disparity; experience; expiration; food security; good diet; health disparity; health disparity populations; indexing; interest; large datasets; longitudinal analysis; nutrition; pandemic disease; pre-pandemic; programs; response; rural residence; rurality; social; study population; supply chain; underserved community

PROJECT SUMMARY The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) is the largest food security program for lower-income households in the U.S., providing financial benefits for grocery purchases to nearly 42 million people (1 in 8). SNAP benefit amounts increased substantially starting in March 2020, most of which was driven by temporary emergency allotments (i.e., supplemental benefits), to bolster food security in response to the COVID-19 pandemic and to ensure participants could afford a healthy diet. These emergency benefits expired across all states in March 2023, a policy that is estimated to have reduced benefits by an average of $175 per household, a ~33% decline. The sudden end of SNAP emergency allotments represents the largest-ever universal reduction in SNAP benefits and could have a major impact on households’ food purchases and their subsequent health. However, this has not been investigated to date. This study will make a significant contribution by evaluating the impact of the expiration of SNAP emergency allotments on participants’ food purchase quality overall, among historically underserved groups with worse food access and pre-pandemic inequities in nutrition-related chronic disease, and in the context of concurrent economic, social, community, and retail factors. We will use a mixed- methods approach that combines a natural experiment of household purchases with qualitative interviews of SNAP participants and those working in the larger food system. In Aim 1, we will analyze longitudinal, loyalty- linked sales data on >440,000 customers of a large Northeast supermarket chain who made purchases from November 2021-February 2023 (16 months before the end of SNAP emergency allotments). We will use controlled interrupted time series (CITS), a quasi-experimental method, to estimate the effect of the end of SNAP emergency allotments on several indices of food purchase quality from April 2023-March 2024 (12 months after the end of allotments) among SNAP-participating households (intervention) vs. non-participating households (control). In Aim 2, we will enroll a cohort of 2,500 lower-income shoppers who shop at the chain and whose purchases can be identified by loyalty number. We will assess household-level data via online surveys and use CITS to examine associations between the end of SNAP emergency allotments and supermarket food purchase quality by rurality, race/ethnicity, and economic stability. In Aim 3, we will explore individual-level factors (e.g., use of other assistance programs, cooking norms, food preferences) by conducting semi-structured qualitative interviews among 45-75 participants from the cohort in Aim 2 who participate in SNAP and represent rural, Black, and Hispanic demographic segments of the study population. We will explore system-level factors (e.g., food availability, supply chains, pandemic era SNAP policy rollout) via interviews with representatives from SNAP implementing agencies, supermarket retailers, and food pantries from within each of the communities of interest. This research will generate timely, rigorous evidence on the nutritional impact of this substantial change to SNAP benefits, which will be useful to policymakers to help guide future program changes.

项目概要 补充营养援助计划 (SNAP) 是针对低收入人群的最大粮食安全计划 美国家庭，为近 4200 万人（八分之一）提供购买食品杂货的经济福利。 从 2020 年 3 月开始，SNAP 福利金额大幅增加，其中大部分是由临时性推动 紧急拨款（即补充福利），以加强粮食安全以应对 COVID-19 流行病并确保参与者能够负担得起健康的饮食。这些紧急福利在所有国家都已过期 2023 年 3 月指出，这项政策估计使每个家庭的福利平均减少 175 美元， 下降约 33%。 SNAP 紧急拨款的突然终止代表着有史以来最大规模的普遍削减 SNAP 福利，可能对家庭的食品购买及其随后的健康产生重大影响。 然而，迄今为止尚未对此进行调查。这项研究将通过评估 SNAP 紧急拨款到期对参与者总体食品购买质量的影响，其中 历史上服务不足的群体，食物获取机会较差，大流行前营养相关慢性病方面存在不平等 疾病，以及同时存在的经济、社会、社区和零售因素的背景下。我们将使用混合 方法将家庭购买的自然实验与定性访谈相结合 SNAP 参与者和在更大的粮食系统中工作的人员。在目标 1 中，我们将分析纵向忠诚度 将东北某大型连锁超市超过 440,000 名顾客的销售数据关联起来，这些顾客从 2021 年 11 月至 2023 年 2 月（SNAP 紧急拨款结束前 16 个月）。我们将使用 受控中断时间序列（CITS），一种准实验方法，用于估计 SNAP 结束的效果 2023年4月至2024年3月（12个月后）对食品采购质量多项指标进行紧急拨款 SNAP 参与家庭（干预）与非参与家庭的比较 （控制）。在目标 2 中，我们将招募 2,500 名在连锁店购物的低收入购物者组成的群体，他们的 购买可以通过忠诚度号码来识别。我们将通过在线调查和使用来评估家庭层面的数据 国旅将审查SNAP紧急拨款结束与超市食品采购之间的关联 质量取决于乡村、种族/民族和经济稳定性。在目标 3 中，我们将探讨个人层面的因素（例如， 使用其他援助计划、烹饪规范、食物偏好），通过进行半结构化定性研究 对来自目标 2 队列的 45-75 名参与者进行访谈，他们参加 SNAP，代表农村、黑人、 研究人群中的西班牙裔人口群体。我们将探索系统级因素（例如食物 可用性、供应链、大流行时代 SNAP 政策推出）通过对 SNAP 代表的采访 每个相关社区内的执行机构、超市零售商和食品储藏室。 这项研究将为 SNAP 重大变化的营养影响提供及时、严格的证据 好处，这将有助于政策制定者帮助指导未来的计划变化。