BRIEF RESEARCH REPORT article
Front. Nutr.
Sec. Food Policy and Economics
An Evaluation of a State-level Fruit and Vegetable Incentive's Impacts on Food and Nutrition Security Among SNAP Participants
Provisionally accepted
- 1University of Illinois Chicago, Chicago, United States
- 2Brown University School of Public Health, Providence, United States
- 3University of Rhode Island, Kingston, United States
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Objective: To test the short-term effect of a state-level fruit and vegetable incentive (FVI) on food and nutrition security among Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) participants. Methods: In January 2024, Rhode Island (RI) implemented a FVI, which provided a $0.50 credit for every $1.00 spent on fresh FV up to $25/month. Using a difference-in-differences approach, we used separate adjusted logistic regression models to evaluate FVI impacts on household food and nutrition insecurity and perceived FV affordability, in RI relative to changes in the comparison site of Connecticut (CT), ~6 months after implementation. Results: At baseline, participants' (N=725) mean age was ~35 years old, ~95% were women, ~40% identified as Hispanic, and ~25% perceived that they could not afford FV. Food (55-59%) and nutrition (30-34%) insecurity were high in both states. After implementation, neither food (Odds Ratio [OR]:1.14; 95% Confidence Interval [CI]:0.84-1.55) nor nutrition insecurity (OR:0.92; 95% CI:0.63-1.34) changed in RI relative to CT. There were also no changes over time in perceived FV affordability in RI versus CT (OR:0.80; 95% CI:0.54-1.18). Conclusions: We did not observe short-term changes in food or nutrition insecurity associated with the FVI provided to SNAP participants. Future analyses should evaluate longer-term policy effects.
Keywords: Nutrition Policy, Quasi-experimental design, fruits and vegetables, Food insecurity, nutrition insecurity
Received: 15 Sep 2025; Accepted: 31 Oct 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Oddo, Leider, Tovar, Vadiveloo, Elenio and Powell. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Vanessa M. Oddo, voddo@uic.edu
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