The role of SNAP and WIC in the bidirectional relationship between food insecurity and maternal depressive symptoms.

Background: The association between food insecurity and maternal depressive symptoms has been established by many cross-sectional and longitudinal studies however the understanding of the reciprocal relationship between them remains unclear. Further, previous research demonstrates that federal nutrition assistance decreases food insecurity and promotes maternal mental well-being but further research is needed to elucidate the moderating role of these programs in the association between food insecurity and maternal depressive symptoms. Therefore, the current study examined the bidirectional associations between maternal depression probability and food insecurity using cross-lagged models and then tested the main and moderating effects of SNAP and WIC.

Methods: Data were from the Future of Families and Child Wellbeing Study and the sample included 1948 mothers who participated in year 3 and year 5 of data collection.

Results: The cross-lagged paths show that food insecurity at year 3 predicted maternal depression probability at year 5 and depression probability at year 3 predicted food insecurity at year 5. There was a significant moderating effect of WIC receipt on the association between food insecurity at year 3 and at year 5 such that when mothers with high food insecurity at year 3 received WIC, they were less food insecure at year 5.

Limitations: The study oversampled for unmarried mothers only two waves of data were used for the cross-lagged panel models.

Conclusions: Results demonstrate the need to incorporate mental health services with the existing food assistance programs and the need to destigmatize the application process and program structure.