Amid cuts, Illinois SNAP-Ed study reveals powerful partnerships supporting healthy communities

URBANA, Ill. — A critical program supporting healthy communities in Illinois and across the country took a devastating hit on July 4 when HR1, the federal budget reconciliation bill, was passed and signed into law. In addition to slashing funding for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (formerly known as food stamps), the bill eliminated funding altogether for SNAP’s companion program, SNAP-Education, which works with community partners to educate SNAP-eligible families and individuals on obesity prevention, healthy foods, active lifestyles, and stretching food dollars. 

Amid the upheaval, a newly published study demonstrates the strength of SNAP-Ed partnerships across the state of Illinois, underscoring the efficacy of collective efforts toward a greater public good. That’s par for the course for University of Illinois Extension, which administers SNAP-Ed in Illinois alongside the Chicago Partnership for Health Promotion. Extension is part of the College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, and is driven by the university’s land grant mission to serve the state through research, education, and outreach. 

Illinois SNAP-Ed employs 217 dedicated community educators and public health and food systems professionals embedded in their communities, hosting family cooking classes, driving impactful public health initiatives, developing food systems and policy, and maintaining innovative resources like the Find Food IL Map for Illinois residents.

“Every week, our educators hear from parents who say they finally feel confident reading nutrition labels and stretching their food dollars to make ends meet while providing healthier meals for their families. We work with older adults who learn new ways to manage chronic conditions through the food they eat, and with children trying fresh fruits and vegetables for the first time. These are real people — our neighbors — whose lives are changed because someone took the time to meet them where they are and offer support,” said study co-author Jennifer McCaffrey, Illinois Extension’s assistant dean and program leader for Family and Consumer Sciences. “SNAP-Ed and its partners offer touchpoints for trust, connection, and health in communities that need them most.”

Enabling partner organizations to meet shared goals

Illinois Extension staff regularly partners with mission-aligned organizations on the ground to extend their reach and impact. But until now, the strength of those partnerships hadn’t been quantified.

As part of federal reporting mandates, Caitlin Kownacki, senior program lead of evaluation for Illinois Extension’s Family and Consumer Sciences program area, is tasked with evaluating the SNAP-Ed program, known as Eat.Move.Save in Illinois. In 2023, her team embarked on a multi-year effort to evaluate SNAP-Ed by surveying and interviewing program staff and many of SNAP-Ed’s 1,878 statewide partner organizations. 

“Illinois uses a unique model for our SNAP-Ed program. We look at entire geographic regions and strategize the program across the communities in those areas to maximize our reach and interaction with families,” said Kownacki, the study’s first author. “This part of our program evaluation looked at the strength of our relationships with our partners, and how organizations are working together for a shared purpose to support healthy communities.”

As part of this evaluation, SNAP-Ed surveyed and interviewed partners and coalitions to learn about their perspectives on the depth and value of working with SNAP-Ed, as well as their current and future offerings of services aligned with SNAP-Ed (i.e., obesity prevention, food access, nutrition, physical activity, etc.). 

The study found that SNAP-Ed partners valued strong collaboration with SNAP-Ed, with many of the organizations reporting long-term partnerships with the program. Most partners strongly agreed that their organization play a role in improving healthy behaviors, access to food, and obesity within their communities and that their organization could influence the policies and actions of community-based efforts. Additionally, many SNAP-Ed partners were actively participating in multi-sector coalitions working towards increased food access and improved diet quality.

One anonymous partner said, “We’re actually making change. We’re instituting policies at food pantries so that they recognize they need to build in more nutritious foods, and that’s directly coming [from SNAP-Ed] leadership.”

Another partner, Alecks Griffin, a Community Advisory Board member for Healthy Eating Active Living in Peoria, said SNAP-Ed has played a key role in bringing organizations together around a shared vision for healthier, more food-secure communities.

“Working with SNAP-Ed has helped us build lasting connections across organizations that share a vision for healthier, more food-secure communities,” he said. “Through this partnership, we’ve expanded access to nutrition education and increased awareness and use of local programs and resources.”

Federal funding removal risks community health

Unfortunately, the loss of federal funding for SNAP-Ed could jeopardize the work these partners are doing, risking the elimination of nutrition education and food access programs in all areas of the state. 

Dr. Amy Christison, the medical director of Healthy Kids U, a pediatric weight management program at the University of Illinois College of Medicine, said SNAP-Ed’s expertise, resources, and community ties made it possible for the program to extend its impact beyond the clinic.

“SNAP-Ed staff have partnered with us to deliver nutrition education, food literacy classes, and connect our patients with food resources when money is tight,” Christison said. “They have served as advisors, grant writing partners, and implementation personnel for much of our community service outreach. This partnership has resulted in substantial grant funding, the creation of a food resource website, education of medical students and physician residents on nutrition security, and the establishment of best practices for promoting nutritious food within our regional charitable food system.”

The study on SNAP-Ed partnerships is just one part of a larger SNAP-Education Impact report that, along with forthcoming journal articles, shows the program’s value and impact in Illinois. For example, nearly 60% of participants reported improving healthy behaviors like increasing physical activity, eating more fruits and vegetables, and trying healthy recipes because of their involvement in SNAP-Ed programs. 

Furthermore, for every $1 spent on Illinois SNAP-Ed, the program returns up to $9.54 in future health and economic benefits from prevented cases of obesity and food insecurity among Illinois children and adults, leading to healthcare cost savings and increased educational attainment, lifetime earnings, and life expectancy. 

“This computes to an estimated future societal benefit return of $76 million to $135.3 million for a single year of programming for the federal government's investment of $19 million in Illinois,” Kownacki said.

With a zeroed federal budget for SNAP-Ed, these benefits could disappear. Illinois Extension predicts additional fallout, including: 

• Loss of statewide coordination: Illinois SNAP-Ed will no longer serve as a statewide connector and collaborator across federally funded nutrition programs, community partners, and public agencies to improve access to healthy food and promote active living for low-income families.
• End of support for food access initiatives: Hunters Feeding Illinois, mobile food markets in underserved areas, and grocery store and community revitalization efforts promoting local food systems will no longer be supported by SNAP-Ed staff.
• Reduced support for IDHS centers: Over 60 IDHS Family and Community Resource Centers will no longer receive SNAP-Ed information, which has directly helped those who receive food benefits to use them more effectively.
• Impact on senior nutrition: Over 8,600 seniors will no longer receive nutrition education information that helps them use their food packages.
• Ripple effect across USDA programs: There will be a ripple effect across all USDA nutrition programs that SNAP-Ed has supported through policy, systems, and environmental changes, as well as through community coalitions and committees led or co-led by SNAP-Ed.

If you would like to get involved in determining solutions for how Illinois moves forward to combat nutrition security, reach out to Jennifer McCaffrey at jmccaffr@illinois.edu. 

The study, “Mixed Methods Assessment of Partnerships and Coalitions in SNAP Education (SNAP-Ed),” is published in Health Promotion Practice [DOI:10.1177/15248399251340599].