Poor health and food insecurity among food assistance recipients: Evidence from France

• We study the link between food insecurity and health among food assistance recipients. • Food insecurity and poor health are strongly and positively correlated in France. • The food insecurity-poor health correlation is stronger among natives than immigrants. • The low frequency of food center visits may explain why food insecurity affects health. This paper examines the relationship between food insecurity and poor health among food assistance recipients in France using a dataset collected in 2021 from nearly 4,000 respondents. For these individuals from disadvantaged socio-economic backgrounds, food assistance may eliminate the association between food insecurity and health reported in surveys of the general population. Regression estimates show a strong positive association between food insecurity and poor health (self-reported health, chronic disease, activity limitation). This correlation is significantly higher for native respondents than for migrants. After accounting for the endogeneity of food insecurity through a free-instrument approach that estimates bounds, we confirm the positive association between food insecurity and poor health. The low frequency of visits to food banks may explain why food insecurity persists among participants and continues to affect health.