Background Report on the Use and Impact of Food Assistance Programs on Indian Reservations

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Summary

Four food assistance programs operated by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) specifically designate American Indians and Alaska Natives as beneficiaries: the Food Distribution Program on Indian Reservations (FDPIR), the Food Stamp Program (FSP), the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC), and the Commodity Supplemental Food Program (CSFP). Two additional programs, the National School Lunch Program and the School Breakfast Program, are widely used but do not have special provisions for reservations. To inform USDA decisions on future efforts to collect data and support research, we summarize prior research and existing data sources on the use and impact of these programs on Indian reservations.

We reviewed existing data sources, including both survey and administrative data; reviewed previous research studies, including studies pertaining to particular tribes or geographic regions; and discussed data and research on reservation food assistance with subject area experts, including federal food program administrators, tribal food program managers and service providers, and researchers. The paper identifies data sources as well as information gaps and provides suggestions for improving data sources and furthering research on this topic.

We identified four clusters of current issues, related to nutrition, participation, program administration, and cultural content in the food assistance programs discussed above. There is widespread interest in understanding and improving the nutritional effects of reservation food assistance programs. This interest is a response to the prevalence of obesity, diabetes, and other diet-related health conditions among American Indians. Little is known about patterns of participation and nonparticipation in reservation food programs. Discussions of program administration revolve around the stringent requirements for tribal administration of the FSP, which have never been met, and funding levels for WIC, the FDPIR, and the CSFP, which are administered by Indian Tribal Organizations (ITOs) on many reservations. Cultural concerns involve the inclusion of specific traditional foods in commodity packages and the relationship of food assistance programs to tribal norms such as sharing of food and respect for elders.

The most useful data sources on the use and impact of food assistance programs on Indian reservations provide information on population characteristics (for both participants and eligible nonparticipants), program participation, and health and nutrition outcomes. The paper reviews 26 surveys conducted at the national, state, or tribal level and the extent to which they provide the data discussed above. Many of these surveys include data on participation in the Food Stamps program and WIC; some also cover the school breakfast and lunch programs. Only the Navajo Health and Nutrition Survey (NHNS) measures FDPIR participation, and none of the surveys we reviewed provides data on the CSFP. The health and nutrition content of the surveys reflects the purposes for which data were collected.

Most of the surveys make it possible to identify American Indians, but except for the NHNS and tribal surveillance surveys, which only cover reservation populations, public-use survey data are generally inadequate to identify the subset of American Indians who live on reservations. Several strategies, however, might be used to work around these limitations.

Particularly promising resources for analysis of the use and impact of food assistance programs on Indian reservations include the NHNS, the California Health Interview Survey (CHIS), the Early Childhood Longitudinal Survey Birth Cohort (ECLS-B), and the Early Childhood Longitudinal Survey Kindergarten Cohort (ECLS-K). Four surveillance systems—the Pediatric Nutrition Surveillance System (PedNSS), the Pregnancy Nutrition Surveillance System (PNSS), the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS), the Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance System (YRBSS)—have relevant content but limited information on program participation. Minor changes would increase the value of the Current Population Survey (CPS), the National Health Interview Survey (NHIS), and the Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP) for analysis of the use and impact of food assistance on Indian reservations.

Special surveys designed to measure program participation and related health and nutrition outcomes among Indians living on reservations provide additional sources of data on the use and impact of food assistance programs. The content and coverage of these surveys make them more relevant to the topic than multipurpose state and national surveys, but the special surveys are less likely to be conducted regularly, and their data is less likely to be archived for public use by researchers other than those involved in the original studies. Future efforts to collect and analyze survey data on the use and impact of food assistance programs on Indian reservations are likely to involve tribal authorities as well as individual American Indian respondents.

Administrative data generated or collected by each of the food assistance programs for purposes such as case management or quality control can be valuable resources for research. Administrative data, however, can only be used to examine the characteristics of program participants; comparable information about eligible nonparticipants is not collected. Administrative data appear to be more useful for studying the FDPIR and WIC on Indian reservations than for studying the FSP as reservation food assistance.

Continuing research questions concern the impacts of reservation food assistance, the characteristics that make nutrition education effective on reservations, participation in the FSP, FDPIR, and WIC, and the extent to which tribal administration can improve coordination, both among food assistance programs and with other low-income programs. The USDA could improve the capacity to address these questions by devoting more resources to archiving data from special surveys; supporting experiments with imputation of reservation status in survey data; working with other federal agencies to make the CPS, NHIS, and SIPP more useful for analysis of reservation populations; and regularly including at least one reservation food assistance program in multisite studies. Recent proposals for development and linkage of administrative data on food assistance programs, though not designed with reservation programs in mind, would increase information on the use and impact of food assistance on Indian reservations, particularly if the FDPIR is included in the initiatives.

Note: This report is available in its entirety in the Portable Document Format (PDF).

The nonpartisan Urban Institute publishes studies, reports, and books on timely topics worthy of public consideration. The views expressed are those of the authors and should not be attributed to the Urban Institute, its trustees, or its funders.

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