ArticleAmerican journal of preventive medicine2019
Supermarket Purchases Over the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program Benefit Month: A Comparison Between Participants and Nonparticipants.
Article in American journal of preventive medicine, 2019. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. An erratum has been issued. Cited by 9 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
9 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- A systematic review of supermarket automated electronic sales data for population dietary surveillance.Nutrition reviews · 2022Pooled it
- Food insecurity and at-home vegetable and sugar-sweetened beverage availability: TX Sprouts randomized controlled trial.Scientific reports · 2026Trial
- Article
- Methods Used to Evaluate the Health Effects of Social Policies: A Systematic Review.Current epidemiology reports · 2025Article
- In-Store Marketing and Supermarket Purchases: Associations Overall and by Transaction SNAP Status.American journal of preventive medicine · 2023Article
- Opportunities and challenges in using instrumental variables to study causal effects in nonrandomized stress and trauma research.Psychological trauma : theory, research, practice and policy · 2023Review
- What to Do When Everything Happens at Once: Analytic Approaches to Estimate the Health Effects of Co-Occurring Social Policies.Epidemiologic reviews · 2022Article
- The Revolution Will Be Hard to Evaluate: How Co-Occurring Policy Changes Affect Research on the Health Effects of Social Policies.Epidemiologic reviews · 2022Article
- Trends in cyclical food expenditures among low-income households receiving monthly nutrition assistance: results from a prospective study.Public health nutrition · 2021Article
Corrections and comments
- Erratum issued
Authors and funding
10 authors.
Funding
Abstract
introductionThe Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program provides financial assistance for food and beverage purchases to approximately 1 in 7 Americans, with benefits distributed once monthly. Most Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits are spent early in the month, leading to decreased caloric intake later in the month. The effects of this early benefit depletion on the types of foods and beverages purchased over the course of the month is unclear.
methodsUsing individually tracked sales data from 950 participants enrolled in 2 supermarket-based RCTs in Maine (October 2015-April 2016 and October 2016-June 2017), purchases of selected food categories by Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program participants (n=248) versus nonparticipants (n=702) in the first 2 weeks compared with the last 2 weeks of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefit month were examined. Analyses were completed in 2019.
resultsFor Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program participants, adjusted mean food spending decreased 37% from the first 2 weeks to the last 2 weeks of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefit month (p<0.0001) compared with a 3% decrease (p=0.02) for nonparticipants. The decline in spending by Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program participants occurred in all examined categories: vegetables (-25%), fruits (-27%), sugar-sweetened beverages (-30%), red meat (-37%), convenience foods (-40%), and poultry (-48%). Difference-in-difference estimators comparing Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program participants with nonparticipants were statistically significant (p<0.05) for all examined categories.
conclusionsIn the second half of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefit month, individuals reduced purchases of all examined categories. More research is needed to understand the impact of these fluctuations in spending patterns on the dietary quality of Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program participants.
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