Community Eligibility Provision and School Meal Participation among Student Subgroups

Background: The National School Lunch and Breakfast Programs help to reduce food insecurity and improve nutrition. The Community Eligibility Provision (CEP) enables high-poverty schools to offer breakfast and lunch at no cost to all students. This study examines associations between CEP and participation among students eligible for free or reduced-price meals ("FRPM"), possibly eligible ("near-cutoff"), or ineligible ("full-price"). Methods: Using data from the 2013-2015 Healthy Communities Study, we compared school breakfast and lunch participation between 842 students in K-8 at 80 CEP schools and 1463 students at 118 schools without CEP. Cross-sectional difference-in-difference (DID) models compared meal participation among near-cutoff and full-price groups to that in the FRPM group. Results: Overall, FRPM students had high participation in school lunch and breakfast at both types of schools. In adjusted DID models, lunch participation among near-cutoff students was 12 points higher in CEP versus comparison schools (p < 0.05). Among full-price students, breakfast participation was 20 points higher and lunch participation 19 points higher in CEP than comparison schools (p < 0.001). Conclusions: Community Eligibility Provision improves access to school breakfast and lunch in high-poverty schools, particularly for students who are near or above the cutoff for FRPM eligibility.