# Effects of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program on racial/ethnic and disability-based healthcare disparities

> **NIH NIH R01** · ALTAMED HEALTH SERVICES CORPORATION · 2023 · $126,553

## Abstract

Project Summary/Abstract
 This project will examine the impact of losing Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP)
benefits on healthcare outcomes and healthcare disparities based on race/ethnicity and disability. Racial/ethnic
minorities and people with disabilities experience healthcare disparities in the areas of disease prevention and
management, unfavorable clinical events, and acute healthcare expenditures. Food insecurity may affect these
disparities: food insecure individuals forgo needed care and medications more often, use emergency and
inpatient care more often, and require higher expenditures than food secure individuals. Meanwhile,
racial/ethnic minorities and people with disabilities are 2.2 and 2.8 times as likely to be food insecure as non-
minorities and people without disabilities, respectively, face starker tradeoffs between food and resources such
as housing, and have greater sensitivity to food insecurity given greater economic and health vulnerabilities.
 SNAP has been shown to reduce food insecurity and is disproportionately utilized by racial/ethnic
minorities and people with disabilities. SNAP policy changes could therefore affect healthcare outcomes for
racial/ethnic minorities and people with disabilities in different ways than for others. For example, initial studies
by our team and others suggest SNAP may reduce poor healthcare outcomes and Medicaid expenditures,
particularly for people with disabilities. However, these studies were limited to population-level or cross-
sectional data, and all studied non-random changes to SNAP. Further, no studies have examined the effects of
SNAP on healthcare disparities empirically. In this project, we exploit a natural experiment in which arbitrary
errors in the Massachusetts eligibility evaluation system caused 75,200 SNAP recipients to receive arbitrary
terminations despite actually still being eligible. Moreover, because of recent legislation in the state, we will
have access to comprehensive longitudinal SNAP, medical claims, and other public health data on the entire
state population. Using these linked data and growth curve modeling, we will examine the impact of losing
SNAP benefits on healthcare outcomes and disparities related to disease prevention and management (Aim
1), unfavorable clinical events (Aim 2), and healthcare expenditures (Aim 3). We hypothesize SNAP losses
are associated with worse healthcare outcomes and elevated racial/ethnic and disability-based disparities.
 Cuts to SNAP benefits are routinely debated, but there is limited information on how benefit losses for
current recipients would affect healthcare outcomes. Our study will help fill this gap. More broadly, programs
like SNAP target determinants of health and healthcare disparities, yet their potential effects on these
outcomes have received minimal study. By adding to this literature, our analyses will further the NIH Health
Disparities Strategic Plan’s goal of supporting “research on the fa...

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10533748
- **Project number:** 5R01MD013837-04
- **Recipient organization:** ALTAMED HEALTH SERVICES CORPORATION
- **Principal Investigator:** Rajan Anthony Sonik
- **Activity code:** R01 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2023
- **Award amount:** $126,553
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2020-04-13 → 2023-06-30

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10533748

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10533748, Effects of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program on racial/ethnic and disability-based healthcare disparities (5R01MD013837-04). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-23 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10533748. Licensed CC0.

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