GSSWSR's Vartanian Receives Grant to Study Relationship Between Food Stamps and Healthy Eating
Professor of Social Work and Social Research Thomas P. Vartanian's latest research project is titled, "Rural and Urban Comparisons of SNAP Participation, Neighborhood Effects, and Food Outlet Availability on Childhood and Adult Time with Normal and Obese Weight."
For the project Vartanian will use longitudinal data to examine whether the food stamp program assists children in low income families to achieve healthy weight relative to those who are poor but do not receive such food assistance. He'll be looking at differences by neighborhood condition and by rural/urban location and will also be examining whether living near or far from large or small grocery stores, convenience stores, and other types of food outlets affects healthy weight both in childhood and adulthood.
Funding for the research comes from the Economic Research Service at the U.S. Department of Agriculture and is administered through the RIDGE Center for Targeted Studies at Purdue University.
Vartanian is teaching Econ 243: Economic Inequality & Government Policy Choices during the spring 2016 semester.