Poor health and food insecurity among food assistance recipients: Evidence from France

Romane Vandroux and François-Charles Wolff

Food Policy, 2025, vol. 134, issue C

Abstract: This paper examines the relationship between food insecurity and poor health among food assistance recipients in France using a dataset collected in 2021 from nearly 4,000 respondents. For these individuals from disadvantaged socio-economic backgrounds, food assistance may eliminate the association between food insecurity and health reported in surveys of the general population. Regression estimates show a strong positive association between food insecurity and poor health (self-reported health, chronic disease, activity limitation). This correlation is significantly higher for native respondents than for migrants. After accounting for the endogeneity of food insecurity through a free-instrument approach that estimates bounds, we confirm the positive association between food insecurity and poor health. The low frequency of visits to food banks may explain why food insecurity persists among participants and continues to affect health.

Keywords: Food insecurity; Poor health; Food assistance; France (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I12 I14 I38 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0306919225001009
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

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:eee:jfpoli:v:134:y:2025:i:c:s0306919225001009

DOI: 10.1016/j.foodpol.2025.102895

Access Statistics for this article

Food Policy is currently edited by J. Kydd

More articles in Food Policy from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().