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Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) is the cornerstone food assistance program in the United States and has been shown to reduce the risk of food insecurity. Most research on the causal effect of SNAP on food insecurity relies on the 12‐month food insecurity scale along with usage of SNAP at any point during the year. However, recent social surveys ask about experiences with food insecurity in the 30 days prior to the survey. In this paper, we examine whether similar protective effects of SNAP against food insecurity are obtained whether using the 30‐day or 12‐month food insecurity scale using the December Supplement of the Current Population Survey for 2002–2019. Results indicate comparable average treatment effects of SNAP in mitigating food insecurity across both 30‐day and 12‐month reference periods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over 5 million persons aged 60 and older are food insecure in the United States. Research on food insecurity among seniors, however, has been sparse. In response, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Food and Nutrition Service (USDA, FNS) funded a series of studies in this research area. In this introduction, we describe trends and consequences of food insecurity among seniors followed by an overview of the nine funded projects. These papers constitute a second round of papers funded by USDA in this research area –the first round was published in volume 44, issue 2 of this journal. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over 5 million persons aged 60 and older are food insecure in the United States. Previous research has uncovered information about the causes and consequences of food insecurity, but, especially in comparison to households with children, research on food insecurity among seniors has been sparse. In response, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Food and Nutrition Service (USDA, FNS) funded a series of studies in this research area. In this introduction, we describe how food insecurity is measured and trends in food insecurity among seniors followed by an overview of the eight funded projects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Food insecurity, defined as a condition of limited or uncertain access to adequate food, is a widely used measure of well-being in the U.S. The survey module in the Current Population Survey (CPS) that is used to generate the official U.S. food insecurity measure is also included on multiple waves of the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID), offering the first opportunity to answer key research questions on the persistence of food insecurity within and across generations. We assess the validity of the food insecurity measure in the PSID by comparing it to the CPS. We find that, although estimated food insecurity rates in the PSID are lower than those in the CPS, the trends over time in the two datasets are similar, and the rates converge from the 1999–2003 period to the 2015–17 period. Our findings lend credence to the use of the PSID for food insecurity research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Food insecurity is now recognized as a major health crisis in the United States. This is due to the size of the problem--more than 42 million persons were food insecure in 2015--as well as the multiple negative health outcomes and higher health care costs attributable to food insecurity. An extensive body of literature from multiple fields has examined the causes and consequences of food insecurity and the efficacy of food assistance programs--especially the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. We review this literature and provide suggestions for future research directions. We suggest examining the distribution of food insecurity within households, the impact of the food distribution system on food insecurity, the coping mechanisms of low-income food secure families, food insecurity among American Indians, the effects of charitable food assistance, the causal relationship between food insecurity and health outcomes, the declining age gradient in food insecurity among Seniors, the effects of labor force participation and the Great Recession on food insecurity, and the long-term consequences of food insecurity. In addition, the impact of two recent policy recommendations on food insecurity - the minimum wage and the Affordable Care - Act should be considered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The prevalence of multigenerational families is on the rise in the United States, as is food insecurity. We estimate the association of resident grandchildren on transitions in food insecurity using longitudinally linked two-year panels of the Current Population Survey from 2001 to 2010. We find that rates of food insecurity in families with a grandchild present are at least twice as high in a typical year compared with families without a resident grandchild, and the extent of very low food security increased substantially faster among these households over the past decade. The rise in food insecurity during and after the Great Recession is due to both increased entry into food insecurity and decreased exit out of food insecurity. A similar trend accounts for the rise in multigenerational households during the recession-grandchildren were more likely to move in with their grandparents, and once there, were less likely to move out. Our transition models show that whether grandchildren remain, or in periods of transition, multigenerational families are at heightened risk of entering food insecurity and remaining in this state. However, the entry of a grandchild may not always be a negative for the family's food security, nor the exit of the child a positive. Entrance of a child seems to buffer the family from extreme forms of food insecurity while exit exposes the family to risk of deeper food insecurity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Almost fifty million people are food insecure in the United States, which makes food insecurity one of the nation's leading health and nutrition issues. We examine recent research evidence of the health consequences of food insecurity for children, nonsenior adults, and seniors in the United States. For context, we first provide an overview of how food insecurity is measured in the country, followed by a presentation of recent trends in the prevalence of food insecurity. Then we present a survey of selected recent research that examined the association between food insecurity and health outcomes. We show that the literature has consistently found food insecurity to be negatively associated with health. For example, after confounding risk factors were controlled for, studies found that food-insecure children are at least twice as likely to report being in fair or poor health and at least 1.4 times more likely to have asthma, compared to food-secure children; and food-insecure seniors have limitations in activities of daily living comparable to those of food-secure seniors fourteen years older. The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) substantially reduces the prevalence of food insecurity and thus is critical to reducing negative health outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Fall 2013 issue of "Childhood Food Insecurity in the U.S.: Trends, Causes, and Policy Options" is presented. It discusses the establishment of an expert panel by the U.S. Life Sciences Research Office in 1989 to find ways to evaluate the nutritional status of difficult-to-sample populations. It explores the Core Food Security Module (CFSM) as a series of questions that inquire whether the household faced difficulties in feeding children and adults due to lack of money.

The article introduces various topics discussed in the special issue of the journal, including food insecurity among children, innovative and policy-relevant directions, and nutrition program for women and infants.

The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) is the largest food assistance program in the United States. Although participation in it has been shown to reduce food insecurity, there is comparatively less clear causal evidence of positive health effects of participation, particularly among adults. We examined the relationship between SNAP participation and premature mortality using data for 1997-2009 from the National Health Interview Survey, linked to data for 1999-2011 from the National Death Index. Results from bivariate probit models found that participation in SNAP led to a populationwide reduction of 1-2 percentage points in mortality from all causes and a reduction in specific causes of death among people ages 40-64. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]