Focus Area: Nutrition Policy & Programs

Cross-Sectional Evaluation of WIC Participation Status and Massachusetts Children’s Nutrition after the Cash-Value Benefit Increase

By

The Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) increased the Cash-Value Benefit (CVB) for fruits and vegetables in 2021. Although WIC participants reported increased purchasing, consumption, and variety of fruits and vegetables after the CVB increase, it is unknown whether this resulted in higher fruit and vegetable intake relative to nonparticipants. The More

An Electronic Health Record-Based Intervention to Facilitate Primary Care Referrals to the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children: Retrospective Cohort Study

By

This study evaluated responses to an electronic health record (EHR)-embedded federal nutrition program (FNP) participation screening and WIC referral tool implemented within 8 clinics during well-child visits for children younger than 5 years of age. Structured EHR data from July 2020 to October 2023 were extracted to summarize screening, referral acceptance, WIC enrollment outcomes, and More

Increases to WIC’s Cash-Value Benefit for Fruits and Vegetables and Higher Benefit Redemption

By

The cash-value benefit (CVB) in the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) supports low-income households with young children to purchase fruits and vegetables. Our objective was to estimate whether the amounts households spent with the CVB increased after recent policy changes. In this natural experiment from 2017 to 2022 among 485 560 More

SNAP Food Restrictions May Help or Hurt—But We Will Probably Never Know

By

The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) helps over 37 million Americans meet their food needs. Beginning in 2025, the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) granted states waivers allowing new restrictions on foods purchasable with SNAP. As of this writing, 23 states had been granted waivers. Implementation of restrictions began in some states in January 2026, More

Reliability and Validity of a Parent-Reported Diet Quality Screener for Young Children: the Rapid Prime Diet Quality Score for Kids (rPDQS-Kids)

By

Pediatric dietary assessment is challenging, particularly for young children who cannot accurately report their own intake. Many existing measures are burdensome for proxy-reporters, and briefer dietary screeners focus on specific dietary components but not total diet quality. The objective of this study was to develop and evaluate the reliability and validity of an adapted brief More

Forecasting WIC Funding Needs: Supporting Families, Strengthening Access

By

In partnership with Westat and with support from Healthy Eating Research, the National WIC Association (NWA) developed a new forecasting model to project funding needs of the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) for Fiscal Year 2027. Report This report describes the model development, including methodology, as well as analysis conducted More

SNAP participation and the healthfulness of food purchased by households with children during the pandemic

By

Changes in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) after the start of the COVID-19 pandemic included emergency benefit allotments and operation waivers. Using five expenditure-based measures of the nutritional quality of food purchases, we tested whether changes in SNAP during the first year of the pandemic were associated with better nutritional quality of food purchases More

SNAP Decisions: Qualitative Research on the Perceived Influence of the COVID-19 Pandemic and Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program Benefit Changes on Food Purchases

By

Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) participants experienced changes in benefits alongside the evolving social and economic environment. Understanding how these factors may have influenced food purchasing decisions can clarify SNAP’s role in shaping diet quality. This study aimed to document SNAP participants’ perspectives on how benefit changes during the pandemic influenced More

A Pediatric Perspective on the 2025-2030 Dietary Guidelines

By

Clear, evidence-based guidance on what foods and beverages children and adolescents should consume—and in what amounts—is foundational for promoting healthy growth and preventing diet-related chronic disease across the life course. Yet many children and adolescents in the US continue to have diets of poor nutritional quality. The Dietary Guidelines for Americans (DGAs), issued every 5 More