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Encore Abstract Poster Session 3

(EA03-15-25) Are Men and Women Who Are Federal Food Assistance Recipients Able to Adhere to the DASH Eating Plan?

Monday, June 2, 2025
11:45 AM - 12:45 PM ET
Location: Poster Board D-20
Disclosure(s):
Mansura Shahad Bawa, Bsc: No relevant financial relationship(s) with ineligible companies to disclose.
Scientific conference where the work was recently presented: Center for Clinical and Translational Science Conference

Date on which the work was previously presented at the scientific conference listed: April 1, 2025

Objectives: Hypertension affects over half of American adults. Direct and indirect healthcare costs of hypertension were $52.4 billion in 2019-2020 (1). The Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension (DASH) eating plan, with lifestyle changes, is a recommended approach to control blood pressure. (2). However, it is unknown if men and women receiving federal food assistance can afford to follow DASH with the assistance they receive.

Methods: Based on the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute one-week DASH eating plan,(3) in January 2025, using data from two popular grocery store chains in southern U.S. cities, the prices for each ingredient were manually calculated. The January 2025 U.S. Thrifty Food Plan's average weekly federal food assistance allotment for men and women aged 20-50 years was compared to the total grocery costs of the one-week plan(4)

Results: According to the January 2025 Thrifty Plan, women in a single household received $67.56 per week on average from the federal food assistance while men received $84.6(4). However, following the one-week DASH plan costs around $86.68. This implies that men could afford to adopt a DASH plan while women could not. Over four weeks, men and women received about $338 and $270.24 correspondingly, while the monthly DASH cost was estimated at $346.72 leaving both men and women unable to afford to follow the plan.

Conclusions: Differences in federal food assistance allotments between men and women may result in inequities in DASH adoption.

Funding Sources: Research reported in this publication was supported by the National Library Of Medicine of the National Institutes of Health under Award Number G08LM014412. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institutes of Health.