Objective

To determine whether the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), which addresses food insecurity, can reduce health care expenditures.

Main Outcomes and Measures

Total health care expenditures (all paid claims and out-of-pocket costs) in the 2012-2013 period. To test whether SNAP participation was associated with lower subsequent health care expenditures, we used generalized linear modeling (gamma distribution, log link, with survey design information), adjusting for demographics (age, gender, race/ethnicity), socioeconomic factors (income, education, Social Security Disability Insurance disability, urban/rural), census region, health insurance, and self-reported medical conditions.We also conducted sensitivity analyses as a robustness check for these modeling assumptions.