Description:
Prior literature has largely neglected the contributions of the Child and Adult Care Food Program (CACFP) to household food security. There are few studies that evaluate the impact of participation in CACFP on child and household food security (Gordon et al. 2010; Korenman et al. 2012). This is surprising given the impact that nutritional inadequacy can exert on early developmental processes. Furthermore, since CACFP receipt is tied to child care, the program may be an indirect work support in that it is a nutritional subsidy that is primarily accessed by children attending child care, when parents are presumably working in the formal labor market. In what follows, we explain the CACFP program in detail and review prior research examining CACFP participation. Then we describe our data and methods for each of our research questions. Using data from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study Birth Cohort we examine the association between CACFP provider participation and the administrative location of the state CACFP program on food security status. We find that accessing child care through either a family care or center care provider who participates in CACFP is a marker for food insecurity. Additionally, we find that children who attend Head Start in states that administratively house the CACFP within the state department of education have a lower overall risk of food insecurity. In the final section, we discuss these findings and their limitations. (author abstract)
Resource Type:
Reports & Papers
Publisher(s):
Country:
United States