{"id":324187,"date":"2026-11-09T14:20:07","date_gmt":"2026-11-09T14:20:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/324187\/"},"modified":"2026-11-09T14:20:07","modified_gmt":"2026-11-09T14:20:07","slug":"snap-benefits-affect-whether-patients-with-hiv-take-meds","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/324187\/","title":{"rendered":"SNAP benefits affect whether patients with HIV take meds"},"content":{"rendered":"

From Philly and the Pa. suburbs to South Jersey and Delaware, what would you like WHYY News to cover? Let us know!<\/a>\n<\/p>\n

Infectious disease doctor Aaron Richterman<\/a> has treated patients with HIV in Philadelphia for many years. He would often hear patients say, \u201cHow am I supposed to take my medicine when I don\u2019t have enough to eat?\u201d\n<\/p>\n

Food insecurity would make it difficult for patients to follow their drug regimen.\n<\/p>\n

His patients need to take a pill once a day<\/a> to manage the virus. If the patients can follow these instructions, the medication allows them to live essentially normal lives. However, if patients miss enough doses, the amount of virus in their blood can increase, which can lead to complications<\/a>, as well as the risk that the patient could pass the infection to someone else.\n <\/p>\n

Researchers have long thought that when people struggle to make ends meet or feed themselves, it makes it harder for them to make complex decisions<\/a> or follow health regimens like medication plans<\/a>.\n<\/p>\n

Richterman, who practices at Penn Medicine, sees patients who rely on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program<\/a> to buy food. People receive SNAP benefits once a month based on the date they applied, which essentially creates a randomized trial for when people receive money for food.\n<\/p>\n

He gave patients with HIV special pill bottles that track whether they take their medicine, and studied whether people behave differently after they receive their SNAP benefits and can afford to buy food, versus later in the benefit cycle when funds are low.\n<\/p>\n

He found that after people receive their SNAP payments, they follow the medication plans more closely<\/a> for a few weeks, but the habits fall off at the end of the SNAP benefit cycle.\n<\/p>\n

Richterman said the results show that patients with HIV can now take daily medication that lets them live more or less normal lives, which is a \u201cbiomedical miracle.\u201d However, he said social problems, like a lack of food or housing, mean the patients can struggle even if they have the medicine they need.\n<\/p>\n

\u201cIt can be much more important than whatever kind of medical counseling I give them to make sure that they\u2019re referred to getting the services that they\u2019re eligible for,\u201d he said.\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"From Philly and the Pa. suburbs to South Jersey and Delaware, what would you like WHYY News to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":324188,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[23147,69,71,70,5767],"class_list":["post-324187","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-philadelphia","tag-hiv","tag-philadelphia","tag-philadelphia-headlines","tag-philadelphia-news","tag-snap-benefits"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/324187","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=324187"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/324187\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/324188"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=324187"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=324187"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=324187"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}