Forecasting WIC Funding Needs: Supporting Families, Strengthening Access

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

An Electronic Health Record-based Intervention to Facilitate Primary Care Referrals to WIC: A Retrospective Cohort Study

Despite benefits of the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC), many eligible children remain unenrolled. This study evaluated responses to an electronic health record (EHR)-embedded federal nutrition program (FNP) participation screening and WIC referral tool implemented within eight clinics during <5-year-well visits. Among 5,385 children, mean age at initial screening was More

Assessing Caregiver Comfort With Linking the Health Care System and the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC)

Integrating WIC referrals within clinical care may improve WIC uptake, data sharing, and nutrition/health outcomes, but little research has explored family perspectives about information exchange between health care providers and WIC regarding their child’s health. Better understanding family perceptions of information exchange could facilitate improvements in the design of effective, family-centered referral pathways. This study More

Automating WIC Screening and Enrollment in Pediatric Primary Care

Many eligible families face barriers to WIC enrollment, including administrative challenges (such as navigating eligibility criteria) and logistical issues (such as a lack of transportation to in-person appointments and insufficient time for attending enrollment appointments). Pediatricians in academic medical systems are well positioned to promote WIC enrollment because of the frequency of their well-child visits More

“I Didn’t Have to Struggle”: Caregivers’ Perspectives on the Synergistic Interplay of WIC and SNAP on Family Health

This study explored how increased Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) and Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits interacted for dually enrolled households. Twenty-five parents dually enrolled in WIC and SNAP in the spring of 2020 shared perceptions of expanded benefits and reduced administrative requirements via semistructured interviews. Specifically, parents shared More

WIC Participant and Local Agency Staff Perspectives on Increased Cash-Value Benefits for Fruits and Vegetables Within an American Indian Tribal Organization

In 2021, participants in the United States Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) received an unprecedented increase in a cash-value benefit for fruits and vegetables (CVB) as a part of their monthly food package. Responses to this increase among WIC staff and American Indian populations are poorly understood. The objective of More

Food Insecurity-Related Stigma Among Adults in the United States: A Scoping Review

This review aimed to characterize individual- and structural-level stigma associated with utilization of government (i.e., SNAP, WIC) and emergency food programs (i.e., food banks, pantries, cupboards, soup kitchens) in the U.S. The review included original peer-reviewed articles or systematic reviews published between January 2004 – June 2024, in the U.S., in English. Included studies reported More

The association between food benefit online ordering and redemptions: evidence from the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children

This study aimed to examine how the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) online food benefit ordering could influence WIC benefit redemptions, comparing the average redemption rates between online ordering early adopters and non-adopters among WIC customers before and after implementing WIC online ordering. A propensity score-weighted difference-in-difference model was used More

Diet Quality and Weight Status are Predicted by Federal Nutrition Assistance Program Participation, Health, and Demographics

This study investigated whether demographic, social, and economic determinants of health, including length of time participating in safety net programs, are associated with diet quality and weight status in early childhood. Using the WIC infant and toddler feeding practices study-2, classification and regression tree identified the sequence of binary splits that best differentiated the sample More