In the US, more than a third (38.7%) of households with incomes below the federal poverty level are food insecure, meaning families have a lack of reliable access to sufficient, affordable, and nutritious foods.
Government benefits, including the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and The Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC), provide nutritious foods to eligible families with low income, yet just 82% and 51.2% of those eligible for SNAP and WIC, respectively, receive these benefits.
In a recently released article in Pediatrics entitled “Caregiver Perspectives on Improving Government Nutrition Benefit Programs,” DanaRose Negro and colleagues at the University of Pennsylvania and Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia conducted a structured interview study to better understand parental barriers to enrollment in these public benefit programs (10.1542/peds.2024-067012)—what prevents parents from redeeming needed and available services?
Check out their great video abstract if you would like a quick and accessible study summary, and read the article also to gather a deeper understanding with more nuance. The study team interviewed a convenience sample of mainly Black (81%), Medicaid-insured (86%), English-speaking parents who had a child under 5 years of age and were current or former WIC and SNAP beneficiaries.
While families appreciated several aspects of each program, key barriers included:
- WIC product restrictions made shopping difficult,
- Both inconvenience and stigma were associated with WIC redemption at the store,
- SNAP’s income eligibility prevented working families from access, and
- Enrollment and recertification for SNAP were burdensome and unclear.
Participants suggested additional strategies that could improve access and program use:
- Decreasing stigma associated with using SNAP and WIC
- Revising enrollment and redemption from in-person to online and phone-based, and
- Better collaboration between health provider offices and WIC and SNAP
This straightforward and informative study gives not just federal agencies, but pediatricians also, ways to support families so they do not miss out on needed SNAP and WIC benefits. Even if co-location of a WIC office in your office is not feasible, (1) facilitating enrollment via a WIC representative, (2) sharing growth metrics and lab values with WIC to avoid the burden of re-measuring, (3) speaking positively about benefit use to avoid stigma, and (4) incorporating a medico-legal partnership in your office to support SNAP access are ways we as providers can help tackle the challenges identified by parents. Kudos to the study team for this thoughtful research!
