ArticleNutrients2021
Universal School Meals in the US: What Can We Learn from the Community Eligibility Provision?
Article in Nutrients, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 20 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
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.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
20 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- School Nutrition Policies and Associations With Academic Outcomes: A Comprehensive Summary of Current Evidence.The Journal of school health · 2026Pooled it
- Pooled it
- Using Social Media to Increase Participation in Universal Free School Meal Programs: An RCT With Parents of Elementary-Aged Children.American journal of preventive medicine · 2026Trial
- Loss of Access to Universal Free School Meals and Body Mass Index in Students.JAMA network open · 2026Article
- From pantry to physiology: A narrative review linking food insecurity to biological dysfunction.Dialogues in health · 2026Review
- Ending universal school meals: student perspectives on how policy reversal shapes hunger, stigma, and learning.Health affairs scholar · 2026Article
- State and federal policies and school meal participation: A descriptive analysis from Arizona.PloS one · 2026Article
- Free, healthy school lunches in New Zealand: A Value for Investment analysis.BMC public health · 2025Article
- Universal free school meals and child body mass index: impact among children in community-based health care organizations.Health affairs scholar · 2025Article
- Considerations for diverse, equitable, and inclusive school food programs in the USA and Canada.Health promotion international · 2025Article
- Household Food Insecurity Is Associated with Parental Perceptions of and Student Participation in School Meals.Nutrients · 2024Article
- A Scoping Review to Identify Community- and Societal-Level Strategies Evaluated from 2013 to 2023 for Their Potential Impact on Child Well-Being in the United States.Children (Basel, Switzerland) · 2024Article
- Universal Free School Meals Policy and Childhood Obesity.Pediatrics · 2024Article
- Article
- Leveraging the Child and Adult Care Food Program to Facilitate Healthy Behaviors and Environments in Early Care and Education Settings.American journal of public health · 2023Article
- Did mental and emotional health of SNAP families' children improve during the COVID-19 pandemic?Preventive medicine · 2023Article
- Breakfast and School-Related Outcomes in Children and Adolescents in the US: A Literature Review and its Implications for School Nutrition Policy.Current nutrition reports · 2022Review
- Associations between a Universal Free Breakfast Policy and School Breakfast Program Participation, School Attendance, and Weight Status: A District-Wide Analysis.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2022Article
- Increased School Breakfast Participation from Policy and Program Innovation: The Community Eligibility Provision and Breakfast after the Bell.Nutrients · 2022Article
- Purchasing Behavior, Setting, Pricing, Family: Determinants of School Lunch Participation.Nutrients · 2021Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
2 authors.
Funding
Abstract
Changes in school meal programs can affect well-being of millions of American children. Since 2014, high-poverty schools and districts nationwide had an option to provide universal free meals (UFM) through the Community Eligibility Provision (CEP). The COVID-19 pandemic expanded UFM to all schools in 2020-2022. Using nationally representative data from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study: Kindergarten Class of 2010-2011, we measured CEP effects on school meal participation, attendance, academic achievement, children's body weight, and household food security. To provide plausibly causal estimates, we leveraged the exogenous variation in the timing of CEP implementation across states and estimated a difference-in-difference model with child random effects, school and year fixed effects. On average, CEP participation increased the probability of children's eating free school lunch by 9.3% and daily school attendance by 0.24 percentage points (
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.