This report uses data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination survey to provide a comprehensive picture of the nutrient intakes, food choices, and diet quality of American school children, broken out by participation in the National School Lunch Program and income status.

This report uses data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey to provide a comprehensive picture of the nutrient intakes, food choices, and diet quality of young children who are WIC participants, income-eligible nonparticipants, and higher income participants.

This report uses data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey to provide a comprehensive picture of the nutrient intakes, food choices, and diet quality of Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program participants, compared with income-eligible nonparticipants and higher-income nonparticipants.

This is the tenth in a series of annual reports to examine administrative errors incurred during the local educational agency’s (LEA) approval process of household applications for free and reduced-price meals in the National School Lunch Program (NSLP). This report examines administrative error estimates in student certification for free and reduced-price NSLP meals.

This report responds to the requirement of PL 110-246 to assess the effectiveness of state and local efforts to directly certify children for free school meals. Direct certification is a process conducted by the states and by local educational agencies to certify eligible children for free meals without the need for household applications. 

FNS developed the Access, Participation, Eligibility and Certification (APEC) study series, which collects and analyzes data from a nationally representative sample of schools and school food authorities (SFAs) about every 5 years. APEC allows FNS to develop a national estimate of erroneous payment rates and amounts in three key areas: certification error, meal claiming error and aggregation error.  FNS recently completed APEC II, which collected data in School Year 2012-2013 and this report summarizes those findings.

This study describes the characteristics, circumstances, and participation and income dynamics of zero-income SNAP households and seeks to assess whether economic and policy changes may have affected this growth.

This report estimates the average monthly food costs for each of 5 WIC participant subgroups and estimates total dollars spent on 17 major categories of WIC-eligible foods in FY 2010. The participant and food level costs in this report are USDA’s first estimates since implementation of the 2009 WIC food package changes.

This report describes findings from the evaluation of the Fresh Fruit and Vegetable Pilot Program conducted during the 2010– 2011 school year. The evaluation had two components: (1) an impact study to estimate program impacts on participating elementary students and schools; and (2) an implementation study to examine how the FFVP operates in the selected elementary schools.

The purpose of this study was to examine how to define “adequacy” of SNAP allotments objectively in the context of program goals to improve food security and access to a healthy diet, existing data sources that could inform an assessment of the adequacy of existing and potential alternative SNAP allotments, and new data requirements to strengthen the evidence-base and allow for further rigorous analyses.