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Jayanta Bhattacharya, MD, PhD, Thomas DeLeire, PhD, Steven Haider, PhD and Janet Currie, PhD

Jayanta Bhattacharya is with the Center for Primary Care and Outcomes Research, Stanford Medical School, Stanford, Calif. Thomas DeLeire is with the Harris Graduate School of Public Policy Studies, University of Chicago, Ill. Steven Haider is with RAND, Santa Monica, Calif. Jane Currie is with the Department of Economics, University of California Los Angeles.

Correspondence: Requests for reprints should be sent to Jayanta Bhattacharya, MD, PhD, Stanford Medical School, Center for Primary Care and Outcomes Research, 117 Encina Commons, Stanford, CA 94305-6019 (e-mail: jay{at}stanford.edu).

Objectives. The authors sought to determine the effects of cold-weather periods on budgets and nutritional outcomes among poor American families.

Methods. The Consumer Expenditure Survey was used to track expenditures on food and home fuels, and the Third National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey was used to track calorie consumption, dietary quality, vitamin deficiencies, and anemia.

Results. Both poor and richer families increased fuel expenditures in response to unusually cold weather. Poor families reduced food expenditures by roughly the same amount as their increase in fuel expenditures, whereas richer families increased food expenditures.

Conclusions. Poor parents and their children spend less on and eat less food during cold-weather budgetary shocks. Existing social programs fail to buffer against these shocks.

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