Overview
USDA’s domestic food assistance programs affect
the daily lives of millions of people. About one in five
Americans participates in at least one food assistance
program at some point during a given year. Expenditures
for food assistance account for over half of USDA’s
budget.
- The Economic Research Service conducts studies and
evaluations of these programs to meet the needs of USDA,
Congress, program managers, program participants, the
research community, and the public at large.
- Information on the programs’ eligibility requirements,
benefits, regulations, and application process is available
from the Food
and Nutrition Service, the agency responsible for
administering the food and nutrition assistance programs.
The Food Assistance and Nutrition Research Program (FANRP)
at ERS is the premier source of economic research on food
assistance and nutrition in the United States. FANRP has
supported research on numerous food assistance-related
topics, resulting in hundreds of peer-reviewed reports
and articles. These FANRP-supported research publications
are searchable in an electronic
database.
More
overview...
Features
FY 2009
Food Assistance and Nutrition Research Conference—Each
year, ERS sponsors a roundtable discussion to identify
important and emerging research issues related to domestic
food assistance and nutrition programs administered by
USDA and to present recently completed research. The FY
2009 conference—Emerging Issues and Recent Findings—will
be held on Thursday, December 4, 2008, in the Frederick
Waugh Auditorium at ERS headquarters in Washington, DC.
Attendance is free but registration is required due to
limited space. Information on registration and a conference
agenda are available.
 Informing Food and Nutrition Assistance Policy: 10 Years of Research at ERS—Since 1998, Congress has funded ERS to study and evaluate the Nation’s domestic food and nutrition assistance programs. The Food Assistance and Nutrition Research Program (FANRP) at ERS has sponsored over 600 publications on a wide range of topics related to food and nutrition assistance. This report, prepared at the 10-year anniversary of the FANRP program, highlights some of the key research conducted during the program’s first decade.
FY 2008 Research Innovation and Development Grants in Economics (RIDGE) Conference—The Research Innovation and Development Grants in Economics (RIDGE) Program encourages new and innovative research on food assistance and nutrition issues and broadens the participation of social science scholars in this important research area. The annual conference is a forum for grant recipients and attendees to discuss results of recently funded grants on food assistance programs, food security, and nutrition. The 2008 RIDGE Conference was held on October 16 and 17, 2008, at ERS headquarters in Washington, DC. A conference agenda is available.
Recommended Readings
The Food Assistance Landscape—This
annual periodical provides a brief overview of USDA’s
domestic food assistance programs. Each issue contains
recent program statistics, such as expenditure, participation,
and benefit levels, as well as information on related
economic and social indicators, such as employment rates,
income growth, and food price inflation. It also discusses
recent ERS research and food assistance and nutrition
topics.
Effects of Food Assistance
and Nutrition Programs on Nutrition and Health: Volume
4, Executive Summary of the Literature Review—This
report summarizes published research on the impact of
USDA's domestic food and nutrition assistance programs
on participants' nutrition and health outcomes. The outcome
measures reviewed include food expenditures, household
nutrient availability, dietary intake, food security,
birth outcomes, breastfeeding behaviors, use and cost
of health care services, and selected outcomes, such as
academic achievement and school performance (children)
and social isolation (elderly).
Household Food Security in the United States, 2006—In 2006, 11 percent of U.S. households were food insecure (had difficulty providing enough food for all household members due to a lack of resources) at some time during the year, and 4 percent had very low food security. This report, based on data from the December 2006 food security survey, provides the most recent statistics on the food security of U.S. households as well as how much they spent for food and the extent to which food-insecure households participated in Federal and community food assistance programs.
Food Assistance and Nutrition
Research Program, Final Report: Fiscal 2007 Activities—Provides
a description of the Food Assistance and Nutrition Research
Program (FANRP) and a summary of its activities in fiscal
2007, including all extramural projects funded during the
year, key research accomplishments in 2007, and a list of
all FANRP-sponsored publications released in 2007 and previous
years.
See
all readings from ERS…
Food assistance-related reports by other government agencies:
Recommended Data Products
National
data useful in food and nutrition assistance research—Brief
descriptions of national surveys and data sets with links
to the sponsoring organizations.
Current Population
Survey Food Security Supplement—Now available
from the Census Bureau on CD-ROM and on-line via the DataFerrett
system. The CPS Food Security Supplement is a nationally
representative survey of about 50,000 U.S. households
conducted by the Census Bureau for ERS annually since
1995. The data include information on household food security,
food expenditures, use of public and private food assistance
programs, and other information on how households cope
with limited food budgets.
FANRP
Project Descriptions—The FANRP program has an
extensive portfolio of research projects covering diet
and health outcomes, food program targeting and delivery,
and program dynamics and administration.
Recent Research Developments
Food and Nutrition Assistance Programs and Obesity: 1976-2002—High rates of overweight and obesity among low-income populations in the United States have
raised questions about whether Federal food and nutrition assistance programs contribute to the problem. This report analyzes trends in the relationship between food assistance program participation and body weight to determine whether the relationship is consistent over time and across population subgroups. In contrast to previous years, the most recent data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Surveys (NHANES) show almost no relationship between food stamp participation and weight status.
The National School Lunch Program: Background, Trends, and Issues—The National School Lunch Program (NSLP) is the Nation’s second largest food and nutrition assistance program. This report provides background information on the NSLP, including historical trends and participant characteristics. It also addresses steps being taken to meet challenges facing program administrators, including tradeoffs between program access and program integrity.
Can Food Stamps Do More To Improve Food Choices? An Economic Perspective—Food stamp recipients, like other Americans, struggle with nutrition problems associated with choice and amount of foods. This series of Economic Information Bulletins compiles evidence to help address the question of whether the Food Stamp Program (FSP) can do more to improve the food choices of FSP participants. ERS researchers examined the role of affordability and price of healthful foods in influencing food choices and the likely success of any policy targeted at changing food choices through food stamp bonuses or restrictions. Also examined are other approaches to changing food choices, including nutrition education and potential strategies drawn from behavioral economics literature.
Newsletters
Sign Up Now—Keep current on activities in the Food
Assistance and Nutrition Research Program (FANRP) by subscribing
to our free e-mail notification service. You will receive
announcements of our latest reports and other news. You
can also get the latest on other activities at ERS. To
become a subscriber, please submit this short
application form. Be sure to check "Food & Nutrition
Assistance Programs" under Particular Topic Areas to receive
information about FANRP activities.
Related Briefing Rooms
Related Links
Food and Nutrition
Information Center (FNIC)—One of several information
centers at USDA's National Agricultural Library. Access
all of FNIC's resource lists and databases, as well as
many other food- and nutrition-related links.
Five
administering institutions for the RIDGE Program—The
universities and their associated research institutions
that administer the RIDGE Program.
Food and Nutrition
Service—Administers USDA's food assistance programs
and provides program guidelines, data, and research on
the Food Stamp
Program, WIC,
and child nutrition
programs.
Images Gallery
Food
and nutrition assistance programs at a glance—Charts,
tables, and data on food stamps, WIC, child nutrition
programs, and more.
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