Today’s population health challenges are complex. Addressing these challenges and building environments that value and promote health for everyone requires expertise from multiple scientific disciplines and public and private partners.
Guided by the principles of scientific rigor, equity, justice, community engagement, and multidisciplinary and multi-institution collaboration, the Lerner Center’s mission is to improve population and community health through research, education, outreach and health promotion programming focused on the social, spatial and structural determinants of physical, mental and behavioral health and health disparities.
With faculty affiliates from public health, sociology, psychology, economics, medicine and public administration, the Lerner Center’s approach to research is both multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary.
Established in 2011 with an endowment from Sid and Helaine Lerner, the center fulfills its mission through the interrelated pillars of research, education, advocacy and action.
Lerner Center for Public Health Promotion and Population Health
Population Health Research Brief Series
Adopting the Standard Medical Deduction Increased State SNAP Enrollment and Benefits
Yuwei Zhang, Jun Li, Dongmei Zuo, and Colleen M. Heflin
April 2024
Abstract
The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) is a critical safety net program that helps reduce food insecurity among low-income households in the United States. However, many eligible households do not participate in SNAP due to burdensome administrative requirements. To make it easier for more older adults and people with disabilities to participate in SNAP, many states have adopted the Standard Medical Deduction (SMD) to simplify administrative requirements. This brief summarizes findings from a study that examined the associations between state SMD adoption and SNAP participation and benefits from 2004 to 2019.
Population Health Brief Series
Research Projects
Research by Lerner affiliates is regularly funded by the National Institutes of Health, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Russell Sage Foundation and many other federal agencies and foundations. The Lerner Center also funds population health research at Syracuse University through its Faculty Fellows Program.
Student Opportunities
Are you an undergraduate or graduate student at Syracuse University interested in population and community health? Do you seek a career with meaning and purpose?
The Lerner Center provides distinctive experience that combines traditional and applied training in population health and community health research and engagement to address pressing local, regional and national health problems and reduce health inequities—from academic certificates, to internships, to service learning opportunities and more.
Healthy Monday
Learn tips and tricks to jump start your Monday, maintain or promote healthy behaviors and help to end preventable chronic diseases.
Lerner Center for Public Health Promotion and Population Health
Population Health Research Brief Series
Adopting the Standard Medical Deduction Increased State SNAP Enrollment and Benefits
Yuwei Zhang, Jun Li, Dongmei Zuo, and Colleen M. Heflin
April 2024
Abstract
The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) is a critical safety net program that helps reduce food insecurity among low-income households in the United States. However, many eligible households do not participate in SNAP due to burdensome administrative requirements. To make it easier for more older adults and people with disabilities to participate in SNAP, many states have adopted the Standard Medical Deduction (SMD) to simplify administrative requirements. This brief summarizes findings from a study that examined the associations between state SMD adoption and SNAP participation and benefits from 2004 to 2019.