- Author: Brianna Aguayo Villalon
- Editor: Marisa M Tsai
- Editor: Wendi Gosliner
US safety net programs provide aid to low-income households through cash and in-kind assistance, such as food and healthcare benefits. Using data from the Assessing California Communities' Experiences with Safety Net Supports ACCESS,study researchers examined patterns of multi-program take-up, that is participation conditioned on eligibility in California. Sociodemographic factors associated with multi-program take-up were also identified. Among the four safety net programs examined (i.e., Earned Income Tax Credit or EITC, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program or SNAP, the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children or WIC, and Medicaid), NPI researchers found relatively low multi-program take-up of SNAP and WIC. Meanwhile, the take-up of Medicaid was high, both as an individual program and among those participating in other programs. Sociodemographic factors, including Income, age, and primary language spoken were associated with multi-program take-up. To improve multi-program participation, study researchers recommend streamlining application processes to reduce administrative burden, data sharing among safety-net programs, and targeted recruitment of under-enrolled subgroups. Increasing multi-program take-up of safety net programs among California families can contribute to improved health equity and address key social determinants of health. This study was conducted by NPI researchers Marisa Tsai and Wendi Gosliner, Joseph Yeb with Tufts University School of Medicine, Kaitlyn Jackson and Rita Hamad with Harvard School of Public Health, and Lia Fernald with the University of California Berkeley, School of Public Health.
Wendi Gosliner from the Nutrition Policy Institute discussed efforts to enhance population health and nutrition, focusing on eliminating disparities and improving federal food programs in a recent If I Could Change One Thing health policy podcast episode. Highlighting policy amendments during the COVID-19 pandemic, Gosliner emphasized the impact on food access, particularly for SNAP, WIC, school meal programs, and expansion of the Child Tax Credit. Stressing the importance of tackling food insecurity and reducing waste, she called for comprehensive interventions in federal nutrition programs. “When we think about growing food, and all of the inputs that are needed to grow food—the energy, the water, the soil, the human labor, the money to harvest it and transport it— then it gets to us, we buy it, we store it, and then we often throw it away," said Gosliner. "The amount of resources that's wasted with each food item that is thrown away is immense. And then not only that, but food, when it's decomposing in landfills, creates methane, which is a greenhouse gas contributor all on its own. So, for so many reasons, having us throwing away a lot of food is incredibly costly.” Gosliner, NPI's director of food policy research and translation, shared insights with co-hosts James Romine and Rocio Flores in season eight, episode one of the podcast. The podcast is produced by the San Diego State University, School of Public Health. Listen online.
Eligible working families with low income that have children can receive the earned income tax credit, commonly known as the EITC, annually in the form of a lump-sum federal tax refund averaging about $2,500. Little was known about how families spend their EITC funds and the mechanisms for how this credit supports improved health outcomes. University of California researchers conducted a large survey of nearly 250 California families that received the EITC in 2020-2021. Families spent their refunds on basic needs. Half of the families surveyed reported spending their EITC refund on bills, debt or housing, over a third reported spending it on transportation and only 3% reported spending it on healthcare costs. Family recipients that were thirty years old and older were more likely to spend their EITC refund on bills and paying down debt than younger households. Researchers suggested the EITC may support improved healthy by providing families with more money to spend on nutrition and healthcare and may lower family stress by generally increasing household resources. Findings were published in the journal BMC Public Health by Rita Hamad and Kaitlyn Jackson from the University of California, San Francisco, Joseph Yeb from Tufts University, Wendi Gosliner from the Nutrition Policy Institute at the UC Agriculture and Natural Resources, and Lia Fernald from UC Berkeley. This project is part of the Assessing California Communities' Experiences with Safety Net Supports (ACCESS) study which was funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Tipping Point Foundation, the UC Office of the President, and the Berkeley Population Center at UC Berkeley.
Working families with low- to moderate-income can receive up to $6,000 in Federal benefits and an additional $3,000 in California state benefits through the Earned Income Tax Credit, one of the largest poverty alleviation programs in the nation. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention considers EITC a critical evidence-based cost-effective intervention to improve health within five years, however only 53-80% of eligible families received these benefits in 2017 and 2018. Nutrition Policy Institute's Wendi Gosliner will collaborate with Rita Hamad from the University of California, San Francisco and Lia Fernald from UC Berkeley on a project to test an outreach program designed to improve take-up of the Federal and state Earned Income Tax Credits among participants in the Special Supplemental Food Program for Women, Infants and Children (WIC). The two-year project, “Advancing health equity by alleviating poverty: A multi-level, evidence-based pilot trial to increase take-up of the Earned Income Tax Credit,” started October 1, 2022, and was made possible with funding from the Blue Shield of California Foundation. This project builds on previous work by Gosliner, Hamad, and Fernald as part of their Assessing California Communities' Experiences with Safety Net Supports study, which showed barriers to Federal and state EITC uptake.