Do Household Headship and Gender Affect Diet Quality under the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP)?

Purpose: Examine whether the association between Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) participation and diet quality is different by gender and household headship. Design: Quantitative, cross-sectional. Setting: The 2007-2018 waves of the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES). Subjects: 6180 individuals aged 20 to 65 with household annual income below 130% of the poverty level. Measures: The outcome of diet quality was measured using the 2015 Healthy Eating Index (HEI) based on dietary intake from 24-hour diet recall. The exposures were self-reported participation in SNAP and socio-demographic variables. Analysis: Ordinary Least Square (OLS) regression models. Results: The study found that female household heads had higher average total HEI scores relative to their male and non-head counterparts (β = 1.81, 95% CI: −.27, 3.88). However, for SNAP participants, female household heads had lower average total HEI scores (β = −3.67, 95% CI: −7.36,.11). Conclusion: Female household heads are more likely to experience difficulty in maintaining diet quality relative to their counterparts. The study suggests that intra-household effort allocation may play an important role in differentiating and maintaining diet quality.