The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) announced it is partnering with MAZON: A Jewish Response to Hunger to improve and ensure Veterans have reliable access to food.

VA and MAZON will work together to distribute information to Veterans to increase awareness about the risks associated with food insecurity and share the benefits of programs like the Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program (SNAP).

“Veterans must have consistent and reliable access to healthy foods in order to thrive,” said VA Secretary Robert Wilkie. “By raising awareness of the problem of Veterans’ food insecurity and executing solutions, this partnership will lead to more Veterans having more food on the table.”

MAZON: A Jewish Response to Hunger is a national advocacy organization working to end hunger among people of all faiths in the United States and Israel. The organization works to raise awareness about community and government resources to encourage the anti-hunger community to effectively address emerging issues.

“VA and MAZON will use various tactics to help Veterans facing food insecurity access available food assistance resources, like trainings for VA staff to help them better recognize and respond to Veteran food insecurity, ” said MAZON: A Jewish Response to Hunger President and CEO Abby J. Leibman. “These tactics include exploring the creation of a VA pilot program on SNAP outreach for Veterans that can be replicated and scaled up and formalizing target goals for Veteran SNAP eligibility screenings and application assistance.”

This partnership is managed by the Veterans Health Administration’s Nutrition and Food Services office and was facilitated by the VHA Office of Community Engagement (OCE). Partnerships supported by OCE, such as this one, support VHA’s commitment to delivering patient-driven health care.

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The complex food shopping patterns that financially insecure families employ have been upended by the COVID-19 crisis. While increasing the maximum benefit for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP, formerly Food Stamps) is an essential step in addressing the current food insecurity crisis, this policy change alone will not address many of the barriers low-income families are facing in acquiring food during the pandemic.

To facilitate advocacy and policy change around this food insecurity crisis among children and families, researchers at Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health developed a web mapping tool that details states where SNAP shoppers can purchase groceries online and key SNAP policies related to food shopping during the pandemic. The mapping tool also highlights variation in SNAP distribution dates by state. The paper is published in the Journal of Urban Health.

As of mid-March 2020, SNAP recipients were prohibited from using their benefits to purchase foods online, with the exception of a pilot program in five states. While the pilot has expanded rapidly during the pandemic, “rollout of the online purchasing technology may take several months in many states and eligible stores remain limited,” said Eliza W. Kinsey, PhD, associate research scientist in the Department of Epidemiology at Columbia Mailman School of Public Health. “This means many SNAP recipients still cannot order groceries to be delivered to their home and must shop in-person, thus putting themselves and their families at significantly greater risk and furthering the class and racial inequities already manifesting in the current crisis.”

Many low-income households visit multiple food stores in search of the most affordable products, often traveling long distances to acquire food, according to Kinsey and co-author Andrew Rundle, DrPH, associate professor of epidemiology at Columbia Mailman School. For many urban households that rely on public transit or rideshare services, these strategic food shopping techniques are now much riskier.

“Despite innovative strategies to alleviate the impact of this crisis on the food security of children and families, COVID19 will exacerbate health disparities and have profound effects on the food and financial security of many in this country for years to come,” noted Kinsey.

-Dirk Kinsey

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