The New Jersey State Policy Lab is working on a project to improve access to Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) services for non-English-speaking residents. The current NJ SNAP website is only available in English and uses Google’s translation service, which often results in confusing and inconsistent translations. This makes it difficult for non-English speakers to understand important information about SNAP eligibility and application procedures.
To address these issues, the team has developed a prototype chatbot designed to provide equitable access to SNAP services. Built using OpenAI’s API and the Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) model, the chatbot offers responses in multiple languages, including English and Spanish. It processes content from the NJ SNAP website into smaller pieces of information, allowing it to deliver relevant answers tailored to user queries.
The chatbot employs instruction tuning for post-processing its output, ensuring that responses are clear and easy to read at an 8th-grade level. This approach helps make SNAP information more accessible while maintaining transparency by linking all responses back to specific language from the original website.
These improvements are especially beneficial for non-English-speaking households who face additional challenges with navigation and translation inconsistencies on the current site. The multilingual support provided by the chatbot aims to overcome these barriers and promote inclusivity.
The chatbot is currently being evaluated for effectiveness based on user feedback and performance data. This evaluation will guide further refinements to ensure that it meets community needs effectively.
