Children in low-income families with a housing subsidy are less likely to be under-nourished than children in low-income families without a subsidy, according to a new study in the “Archives of Pediatric & Adolescent Medicine.”
Children in households without a subsidy that reported being “food insecure” were twice as likely to be seriously underweight as children in families with a subsidy.
According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, food insecure households are those households that “at some point during the year were uncertain of having, or unable to acquire, enough food for all their members because they had insufficient money or other resources.”
Dr. Allen Meyers, the study’s lead author and a pediatrician at Boston Medical Center and associate professor reports that, “In a time of increasing economic hardship and food insecurity for American families, further restricting access to housing subsidies will compromise the nutritional status and well-being of more low-income children.”
The study’s authors are associated with the Children’s Sentinel Nutrition Assessment Program (C-SNAP), a network of pediatric clinicians and researchers. C-SNAP engages in research to illuminate the consequences of social policy on children.
Visit C-SNAP to access the study and view other C-SNAP publications.