UNDERSTANDING NUTRITION PROGRAM TERMS

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA)

The USDA, and especially Food and Nutrition Services, is the agency which administers the largest number of federal food and nutrition programs and serves the largest number of people. Food and nutrition programs in this agency operate as entitlements (type of government spending on programs for people who meet eligibility criteria), such as SNAP and school meals, or with discretionary spending (determined each year through budget acts approved by Congress), such as the WIC Program.

The descriptions USDA uses for its programs almost always use the term low income: low income people, (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program [SNAP]), low income women (Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children [WIC]), low income families (Child and Adult Care Food Program [CACFP]), low income areas (Summer Food Service Program [SFSP]), low income seniors (Senior Farmers Market Nutrition Program [SFMNP]). The USDA includes the term food security in the mission of Food and Nutrition Services (FNS): “to increase food security and reduce hunger by providing children and low-income people access to food, a healthful diet and nutrition education.” However, the individual programs administered by USDA, FNS do not use or define the terms food insecurity, nutrition security, food and nutrition security, etc.

The USDA Economic Research Service (ERS) is USDA’s principal social science research agency with data products that highlight federal food programs and food security status. The most well-known is the annual report, “Food Security in the United States,” which uses and measures the terms food security and degrees of food security: high, marginal, low, and very low food security.

In 2021, USDA began using the term, nutrition security, noting the agency’s commitment by describing actions to address food security and health on their web pages and communications, including in the Secretary of Agriculture’s statements and speeches.

CENSUS BUREAU

In April 2020, the U.S. Census Bureau began administering the Household Pulse Survey with 15 other federal agencies, including the ERS and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), to respond to unknown and rapidly changing impacts on people brought about by COVID-19. The Household Pulse Survey, yet ongoing in August 2022, measures social and economic impacts including food insufficiency and food scarcity with focus on seven days as a time frame of reference for experiencing food insecurity.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS)

The HHS emphasizes actions to build health equity, reduce health disparities, and address the social determinants of health. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) established an Office of Minority Health and Health Equity (OMHHE) to advance health equity and women’s health issues, with the vision that, “All people have the opportunity to attain the highest level of health possible.”

HHS and the CDC use the term food and nutrition security more often than food insecurity. Food insecurity is described as one economic stability factor of the social determinants of health, along with poverty, housing and employment. Food and nutrition security is part of the framework for the CDC’s National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion (NCCDPHP) to achieve health equity.