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NUTRITION ASSISTANCE STUDY AND EVALUATION PLAN

FOOD AND NUTRITION SERVICE

FISCAL YEAR 2007 

January 9, 2007 

America’s food and nutrition assistance programs form a nationwide nutrition safety net to help 

low-income families and individuals escape hunger and improve nutrition. Together, these 

programs touch the lives of one in five Americans over the course of a year. This preliminary 

study and evaluation agenda will support innovations to improve program access and program 

integrity and is part of a long term investment in the means to demonstrate results. The priorities 

set forth below are subject to change pending the availability of funds. 

• National Survey of WIC Participants – The National Survey of WIC Participants 

periodically collects data on a nationally representative sample of approximately 3,000 

program participants via personal interviews. Previous national surveys were conducted in 

1984, 1988, and 1998 to identify key participant characteristics not available through State 

WIC management information systems and update information on nutritional risks, sources 

of food assistance, family composition, health insurance coverage, and other policy-relevant 

topics. The survey also provides critical support for FNS compliance with the Improper 

Payments Information Act (IPIA) and a Presidential Management Agenda goal (improved 

financial performance with better information on benefit payments and participant 

characteristics). The new survey will expand upon the previous design to provide national 

estimates of income certification error and the dollar level of certification-related 

overpayment and underpayment in the Program. In addition, information from this survey 

will be used by FNS, State and local agencies in decision-making to update services to most 

effectively meet participants’ needs. 

• Measuring Program Access, Trends, and Impacts – This project supports several key 

analytic tools (including microsimulation) to address program participation trends and 

impacts. It provides annual estimates of the percentage of eligible individuals who receive 

food stamps, for the nation as a whole and for individual states, providing a key measure of 

the program’s effectiveness in reaching its target population. The project also generates 

annual reports on the characteristics of food stamp participants. In addition, the project 

provides the primary mechanism through which FNS estimates the caseload and budgetary 

impact of actual and proposed policy changes. 

• Evaluation of Changes to Partial Breastfeeding Reimbursement in the WIC Food 

Package – As part of its proposed changes to the WIC food package, now included in a 

proposed rule, the Institute of Medicine (IOM) recommended elimination of partial 

reimbursement of breastfeeding with the goal of increasing the incentives to breastfeed. 

However, because the change would reduce benefit levels for some women who are 

reimbursed for both formula and partial breastfeeding, IOM called for a national impact 

evaluation before nationwide implementation. This evaluation would assess the impact of 

the change on the duration and frequency of breastfeeding and the incidence of drop-out from 

participation in WIC. Fiscal year 2007 funds will be used to develop the research design and 
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instrumentation, obtain OMB clearance and initiate sample selection. Contingent on the 

content and timing of the WIC food package interim final rule, data collection and analysis 

options may be funded in fiscal year 2008.

• Assessing Food Expenditures and Diet Quality – Recent performance reviews identified a 

need for better information on the effect of food stamp participation on hunger and diet 

quality. As a necessary first step, this project will begin to fill gaps in the information on the 

nature and strength of the relationship between food stamp participation, expenditures across 

major consumer needs (including food), and the quality of the household food supply. It will 

use data from the 1996 National Survey of Food Stamp Participants and the Consumer 

Expenditure Survey to compare spending on key goods and services among participants, 

low-income consumers and all consumers, determine if an increase in food expenditures is 

associated with an increase in nutrient availability and nutritional quality of foods used at home,

and identify factors that influence the relationship. Demonstration of a positive relationship 

between food expenditures and the quality of the household food supply would suggest the 

desirability of further research to explore the subsequent link between an improved household 

food supply and individual dietary intake. If the analysis fails to demonstrate this relationship, 

there would be reason to question the value of research focused on program impacts on 

individual dietary intake. 

• Understanding the Determinants of Food Stamp Participation – One barrier to improving 

measures of program results is selection bias – unobserved differences between program 

participants and eligible non-participants that may introduce bias into measured outcomes. 

To assess the extent and feasibility of controlling that bias, a better understanding is needed 

of the characteristics and circumstances that influence a decision to participate in the Food 

Stamp Program. This project will review available research on the determinants of 

participation among different types of households and use existing survey data to see how 

well econometric models can classify eligible households as participants and nonparticipants. 

• Feasibility of Explaining Interstate Differences in Food Stamp Administrative Costs – 

The cost of administering the Food Stamp Program is roughly $5 billion per year (of which 

the Federal government pays about half). A recent analysis shows that inflation-adjusted 

administrative costs rose by 50 percent between 1989 and 2001. The rising cost of 

administration is perceived to be one reason that many States are considering substantial 

restructuring of program operations. Moreover, average annual costs per case varied widely 

across States, from a minimum of $149 to a maximum of $1,165, and the reasons for this 

variation are not well known. This project will examine the feasibility of collecting State-byState information on a variety of factors – office policies and practices, staffing ratios, salary 

and benefit scales, organizational structures, office space costs, ADP investments, for 

example – expected to have some influence on administrative costs and the feasibility of 

using such data to explain variations in administrative costs between States. 

• CACFP Improper Payments Data Collection Pilot Project – The Improper Payments 

Information Act (IPIA) requires that Federal agencies calculate the amount of erroneous 

payments in their programs. The family day care portion of the Child and Adult Care Food 

Program (CACFP) poses significant challenges to IPIA compliance because Federal 
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payments are for meals claimed but there are no straightforward ways to monitor meals 

actually served in a Family Day Care Home setting (claims are aggregated on a monthly 

basis, meals are rarely served at standard times, attendance of children fluctuates, and the 

presence of an observer in the home may affect children under care as well as the behavior of 

the provider). This pilot project will examine the feasibility of making payment error 

estimates by comparing claims to parent recollections, sign in logs, a combination of the two, 

and statistical projections from in-home observations. The project will estimate the costs of 

feasible methods so that the cost and likely validity of a national study can be estimated. 

• Food and Nutrition Information Center – These funds will support the Food and Nutrition 

Information Center within the National Agricultural Library to systematically store and 

disseminate information on USDA’s food assistance programs, nutrition education, and 

related nutrition topics.