Feeding Children and Maintaining Food Service Operations during COVID-19: A Mixed Methods Investigation of Implementation and Financial Challenges

Kenney, Erica L.; Dunn, Caroline; Mozaffarian, Rebecca S.; Dai, Jane; Wilson, Katie; West, J.W.; Shen, Ye; Fleischhacker, Sheila; Bleich, Sara N.

doi:10.3390/nu13082691

Cited by 26 publications

(50 citation statements)

References 23 publications

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“…Travel was often a challenge for them (39), despite substantial efforts by school food authorities to make meal acquisition as easy as possible. (29,37) In contrast, the effort required for households to receive P-EBT was relatively low, in that cards were automatically mailed to families of children known to be eligible and could be used to buy food at any store accepting EBT. It is worth noting that a recent report suggested that the high P-EBT coverage seen when schools were uniformly closed may be difficult to maintain during periods when the extent of school closures varies.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Pandemic-EBT and grab-and-go school Meals: Costs, reach, and benefits of two approaches to keep children fed during school closures due to COVID-19

Kenney

Walkinshaw

Shen³

et al. 2022

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ImportanceSchool meals improve nutrition and health for millions of U.S. children. School closures due to the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted children’s access to school meals. Two policy approaches were activated to replace missed meals for children from low-income families. The Pandemic Electronic Benefit Transfer (P-EBT) program provided the cash value of missed meals directly to families on debit-like cards to use for making food purchases. The grab-and-go meals program offered prepared meals from school kitchens at community distribution points. The effectiveness of these programs at reaching those who needed them and their costs were unknown.ObjectiveTo determine how many eligible children were reached by P-EBT and grab-and-go meals, how many meals or benefits were received, and how much each program cost to implement.DesignCross-sectional study, Spring 2020.SettingNational.ParticipantsAll children <19 years old and children age 6-18 eligible to receive free or reduced price meals (FRPM).Exposure(s)Receipt of P-EBT or grab-and-go school meals.Main Outcome(s) and Measure(s)Percentage of children reached by P-EBT and grab-and-go school meals; average benefit received per recipient; and average cost, including implementation costs and time costs to families, per meal distributed.ResultsGrab-and-go school meals reached about 10.5 million children (17% of all US children), most of whom were FRPM-eligible students. Among FRPM-eligible students only, grab-and-go meals reached 27%, compared to 89% reached by P-EBT. Among those receiving benefits, the average monthly benefit was larger for grab-and-go school meals ($148) relative to P-EBT ($110). P-EBT had lower costs per meal delivered - $6.51 - compared to $8.20 for grab- and-go school meals. P-EBT had lower public sector implementation costs but higher uncompensated time costs to families (e.g., preparation time for meals) compared to grab-and-go school meals.Conclusions and RelevanceBoth programs supported children’s access to food when schools were closed and in complementary ways. P-EBT is an efficient and effective policy option to support food access for eligible children when school is out.KEY POINTSQuestionWhat were the operating costs, costs and benefits to families, and proportion of eligible children who received benefits of two programs aimed at replacing school meals missed when schools were closed due to COVID-19?FindingsIn this cross sectional analysis, we found that the Pandemic-Electronic Benefit Transfer program, in which state agencies sent debit cards loaded with the cash value of missed school meals directly to families, reached nearly all low income students (89%) and cost relatively little per meal provided. In comparison, grab-and-go school meals, in which school food service departments provided prepared meals for offsite consumption, reached 27% of low income children and was associated with larger per meal costs.MeaningDuring times when children cannot access school meals, state and federal agencies should support cost-efficient programs for schools to distribute prepared meals and activate programs like P-EBT to efficiently reach eligible children.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…(42) Prior research has shown that delivery of grab-and-go school meals is more costly compared to providing regular school meals on-site when schools are open. (29).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Pandemic-EBT and grab-and-go school Meals: Costs, reach, and benefits of two approaches to keep children fed during school closures due to COVID-19

Kenney

Walkinshaw

Shen³

et al. 2022

Preprint

Self Cite

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“…More than 15 years after the SFPs inception, a rigorous independent program evaluation is necessary, as is the norm elsewhere [ 58 , 59 ]. Not until 2015 did the Ministry of Health issue guidelines on children’s nutrition in educational frameworks.…”

Section: Main Textmentioning

confidence: 99%

Child food insecurity in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic: urgent need for policy evaluation and reform in Israel’s school feeding programs

Azarieva

Berry

Troen

2022

Isr J Health Policy Res

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Even in high-income countries like Israel, children have been particularly vulnerable to the surge in food insecurity driven by quarantines, unemployment, and economic hardships of the COVID-19 pandemic. Under normal circumstances, School Feeding Programs (SFPs) can help to ensure child food security. In the wake of the pandemic, policy makers worldwide have been challenged to adapt national SFPs to provide nutritional support to children (and indirectly to their families) during extended school closures. Most national SFPs implemented contingency plans to ensure continued nutritional support for children. In Israel, where SFPs were largely suspended during long periods of mandated school closing, there was a loss of 30–50% of feeding days for the ~ 454,000 children enrolled in the program. The lack of emergency contingency planning and failure to maintain Israeli SFPs during school closures reveals longstanding structural policy flaws that hindered coordination between relevant ministries and authorities and impeded the mobilization of funds and existing programs to meet the emergent need. The school feeding law does not identify child food security as an explicit aim, there are no benchmarks for monitoring and evaluating the program to ensure that the food aid reaches the children most in need, even routinely, and the Ministry of Education had no obligation to maintain the program and to marshal data on the participants that could be acted upon in the emergency. Moreover, because Israeli SFPs are “selective”, in other words, implemented according to community risk (low-income, high poverty rate) and geographical factors, attendant stigma and financial burdens can make participation in the program less attractive to families and communities that need them the most. We argue that Israel should make urgent, long-term improvements to the SFPs as follows: First, eliminating childhood food insecurity should be made an explicit goal of legislation in the broader context of national social, health, and nutritional goals, and this includes ensuring SFPs are maintained during emergencies. Second, the government should assume responsibility for the routine assessment and data collection on food insecurity among Israeli children. Third, SFPs should be subjected to rigorous independent program evaluation. Finally, a “universal” SFP providing nutritious diets would likely improve the health of all Israeli children, across all socioeconomic backgrounds. These steps to guarantee that Israeli children have food to realize their full physical and cognitive potential would emphasize Israel’s firm commitment to support multiple dimensions of health, educational achievement, and societal values, to combat the complex and long-term consequences of the pandemic, and to prepare for the next one.

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“…At the same time, many of the existing challenges in implementing school nutrition programs, including staffing issues and limited capacity, 15 were magnified during the pandemic. School food authorities had to adapt to rapidly changing conditions without having additional revenue to compensate for additional labor, food, and equipment 16 …”

Section: School Nutrition During the Covid‐19 Pandemicmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…School officials may choose to share information about community programs when school nutrition programs are not available, as was the case in several Ohio districts. In addition to supporting families, school districts can use social media to express appreciation for school employees, who have reported feeling underappreciated during the pandemic 16 . Moving out of the pandemic, school officials should continue to provide information for families who are eligible for the NSLP and SBP.…”

Section: Implications For School Healthmentioning

confidence: 99%

Using Social Media to Promote School Nutrition Programs During the COVID‐19 Pandemic

Whitesell

Fitch

2022

Journal of School Health

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BACKGROUND: Millions of school-aged children receive free or reduced-price lunches through the United States Department of Agriculture's (USDA) National School Lunch Program; that service was disrupted when public schools closed at the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic. Prior to the pandemic, this program received little attention on school districts' social media accounts. METHODS:We collected Twitter data from 70 Ohio public school districts to construct a measure of attention paid toward school nutrition programs from 2008 to 2021. We also collected district-level data to analyze the relationship between district characteristics and mentions of school nutrition programs. RESULTS:We show that attention to school nutrition programs significantly increased during the pandemic. School districts with a greater student population density and greater geographic area were more likely to tweet about these programs. CONCLUSIONS:School districts can, and should, use social media to inform residents about school nutrition programs and food security programs more generally. Social media provides a low-cost way to lessen the administrative burden for families trying to access these programs.

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Feeding Children and Maintaining Food Service Operations during COVID-19: A Mixed Methods Investigation of Implementation and Financial Challenges

Cited by 26 publications

References 23 publications

Pandemic-EBT and grab-and-go school Meals: Costs, reach, and benefits of two approaches to keep children fed during school closures due to COVID-19

Pandemic-EBT and grab-and-go school Meals: Costs, reach, and benefits of two approaches to keep children fed during school closures due to COVID-19

Child food insecurity in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic: urgent need for policy evaluation and reform in Israel’s school feeding programs

Using Social Media to Promote School Nutrition Programs During the COVID‐19 Pandemic

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