Community Eligibility Provision and School Meal Participation among Student Subgroups

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").

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.

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 < .05). Among full-price students, breakfast participation was 20 points higher and lunch participation 19 points higher in CEP than comparison schools (p < .001).

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.