Food Insufficiency, Food Stamp Participation, and Mental Health*

Colleen M. Heflin and James Ziliak

Social Science Quarterly, 2008, vol. 89, issue 3, 706-727

Abstract: Objectives. This study examines whether the mental health consequences associated with food insufficiency vary by food stamp participation status and/or the value of the food stamp benefit received. Methods. We use longitudinal data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics along with fixed‐effect methods that control for unobserved heterogeneity to test our hypotheses. Results. We find that, conditional on the food stamp benefit amount, the emotional distress associated with food insufficiency is higher among food stamp participants. Moreover, we find evidence of a dosage effect such that food‐insufficient individuals who receive higher amounts of food stamp benefits suffer greater emotional distress than food‐insufficient individuals who receive lower levels of food stamp benefits. However, the negative mental health effects of food insufficiency and food stamp participation are driven primarily by periods of transition onto the Food Stamp Program and into food insufficiency. Conclusions. The negative mental health aspects of participating in the Food Stamp Program seem to outweigh the positive mental health aspects, at least during the period of application and initial receipt, suggesting that programmatic reform is needed to improve overall well‐being among new participants.

Date: 2008
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (15)

Downloads: (external link)
https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-6237.2008.00556.x

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:bla:socsci:v:89:y:2008:i:3:p:706-727

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.blackwell ... bs.asp?ref=0038-4941

Access Statistics for this article

Social Science Quarterly is currently edited by Robert L. Lineberry

More articles in Social Science Quarterly from Southwestern Social Science Association
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Wiley Content Delivery ().