Parekh, assistant professor of epidemiology in the College of Health Sciences, and graduate student Banushree Jawaharlal Nehru, found that food hardship increased sharply among SNAP recipients with disabilities after the extra benefits ended. Before the cut, about 22% said the food they bought did not last through the month, and they had no money to buy more. Afterward, that figure climbed to 31%, meaning nearly one in three were going without enough food. People with disabilities already are two to three times more likely to have inadequate access to food than other populations, Parekh said. So, the cuts took an especially painful bite.

Further federal changes to SNAP are unfolding in the coming months, with more costs shifting to the states and expanded employment requirements for more people, including older adults. These changes, mapped out in last year’s budget reconciliation bill (H.R. 1, also known as “One Big Beautiful Bill”), may result in longer wait times and other obstacles to receiving assistance and may make it harder for many to get enough food for themselves and their families. Millions may ultimately be dropped from the program altogether.

It’s information state policymakers and others need as they consider how to structure future assistance to some of our nation’s most vulnerable residents.

About one in four people in the United States have a disability — sometimes more than one — and the population is disproportionately low-income, said Parekh, whose research focuses on how social disadvantages influence health, health disparities and substance use issues, along with aging and disability issues.

Exploring the data

The new study relied on data from the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS), which lists six categories of disability, including serious difficulty with:

• Hearing

• Vision

• Concentrating or remembering

• Walking or climbing stairs

• Dressing or bathing

• Doing errands alone

Parekh and Nehru reviewed data from March 2022 through December 2023, restricting their analyses to 22 states, including Delaware, that asked the survey’s optional questions about food and other social needs in both years and that ended the emergency allotments in March 2023.

The data gave Parekh and Nehru insight into two important periods — 12 months of expanded SNAP benefits and nine months after expanded benefits ended. They excluded data from March 2023 because it was a transition period.

The data included 32,447 SNAP-eligible adults with disabilities, about 30% of whom received SNAP benefits. Those who were eligible but not enrolled served as a comparison group, which helped the researchers separate the effect of the benefit cut from other pressures such as rising food prices.

The study focused on a single survey question: How often in the past 12 months had the food the household bought not lasted through the month and there was no money to get more? Households that answered “usually” or “always” were considered food insufficient.

Put another way, roughly one in every 11 SNAP recipients with a disability began running out of food in the nine months after the cut, Parekh said. Among similar low-income adults with disabilities who were not enrolled in SNAP, food hardship barely changed. The increase among SNAP recipients with disabilities, about 9 percentage points, was larger than the increase among SNAP recipients without disabilities, about 6 points, although the difference between the two groups was not statistically significant.

The study also looked at stress, mental and physical health and self-rated health and found no short-term change. Parekh hopes to expand this research to a larger sample over a longer period to see if health effects emerge later.  He also wants to explore different disability types, such as long-term disability.

“With benefit changes and the ongoing discussion about how SNAP benefits are allocated, benefits are already being reduced,” he said. “It’s a good time to think about what we want to do and how the SNAP program should be designed for the people who have the least room to absorb a cut.”

About the researchers

Tarang Parekh attended medical school in India and spent a year serving with Doctors Without Borders on the India-Myanmar border. He later earned his master’s degree and doctorate at George Mason University. Before joining the faculty in UD’s Department of Epidemiology in 2023, he was a postdoctoral fellow at Houston Methodist Hospital’s Department of Preventive Cardiology and Health Data Science and Analytics.

Banushree Jawaharlal Nehru graduated from UD in May 2026 with a master’s degree in public health. She now works as a research coordinator at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston.