Food and nutrition assistance programs help children gain access to adequate amounts of nutritious food—reducing child hunger and food insecurity as well as promoting healthy development. Yet in California, enrollment […]
The researchers studied the association between women's and children's duration of WIC participation and household food security status. Their results showed that among those with initial household food insecurity with hunger, an additional WIC visit reduced the odds of any household food insecurity and of household food insecurity with hunger at the last visit. Earlier and longer WIC participation might improve household food security status, particularly of vulnerable groups.
The purpose of this study was to determine whether household food insecurity was associated with adverse health outcomes in a sentinel population ages 36 months or younger. The study showed that compared with food-secure children, food-insecure children's odds of fair or poor; health were nearly twice as high, and their odds of being hospitalized since birth were almost a third higher. Effect modification occurred between Food Stamps and food insecurity; Food Stamps attenuated, but did not eliminate, associations between food insecurity and fair/poor health.
Including military members’ Basic Allowance for Housing (BAH) as income when determining eligibility for SNAP is not only inconsistent with the treatment of BAH by other federal programs, it has made thousands of struggling families ineligible for vital SNAP benefits. In order to survive, they are turning to food pantries on and off military bases. The BAH is excluded as income for the purposes of calculating income taxes and eligibility for Women, Infants and Children and Head Start programs. The BAH should be consistently excluded as income for the purposes of determining eligibility for all nutrition assistance programs.
