Call for Proposals: NBER Project on the Economics of Food Security, Nutrition, and Health: Insights from FoodAPS

For this initiative, priority will be given to proposals that explore questions related to SNAP, child nutrition (including child nutrition programs), and WIC. Potential research topics for this initiative include, but are not limited to, the following:

·         The Role of Food Access in Child Nutrition

·         WIC and the Local Food Environment

·         Understanding Food Insecurity

·         Private Food Charities, Economic Conditions, and Food Choice

·         SNAP, Food Choice, and Purchase Quality for Households with Children

·         Provider Responses to Federal Food Programs

·         Reporting of Program Benefits and Participation

 

A complete list of variables available to users in this initiative and a user guide is available at: http://www.ers.usda.gov/data-products/foodaps-national-household-food-acquisition-and-purchase-survey.aspx#49482.

This list of researcher questions is intended to be illustrative rather than exhaustive. Researchers interested in studying these or related questions should upload proposals of no more than five pages, single spaced and including references, tables, and other supplementary material by January 15, 2016 to http://papers.nber.org/confsubmit/backend/cfp?id=p_FS

Proposals should describe the research question to be studied and indicate how FoodAPS data will be used to study this question. Projects that do not propose to utilize the FoodAPS data will not be funded. Proposals should also discuss other data, if applicable, that will be used to supplement FoodAPS data, explain methods to be used, and present preliminary or related findings where possible. They should also provide a complete list of the investigators who will be involved in carrying out the project and indicate any potential conflicts of interest that might arise from financial or other interests of the researchers. 

The initiative leaders will review the proposals and select projects for support, subject to the approval of the Department of Agriculture's Economic Research Service. Researchers who submit proposals that are selected for inclusion in the project will be notified by February 28, 2016.

The research team for each project will receive $25,000 of salary support for the principal investigator(s) and $15,000 in research assistant support. The costs for access to the FoodAPS data at the NORC data enclave will be covered for the duration of the grant. Investigators and research assistants will be paid as NBER employees. At least one of the principal investigators on each project must be a faculty member at a U.S. college or university. Proposals from researchers with and without NBER affiliations are welcome. 

Successful research teams will be expected to:
1) Participate in a conference call in during in May 2016 to share ideas across projects and to solicit feedback from other researchers.

2) Present initial results of research at a pre-conference to be held in early 2017.

3) Provide a completed manuscript describing project results and a short executive summary with highlighted findings, and present the findings at a final research conference in late 2017.

A refereed journal may be invited to consider some or all of the research papers in this project for a potential special issue.

Questions about this research initiative may be directed to Elisa Pepe (epepe@nber.org).

Please feel free to forward this message to other researchers who might be interested in this project.