Start Date: February 2020

ID #: 77242

Principal Investigator: Eva Wong, PhD

Organization: Public Health-Seattle & King County

Funding Round: HER Round 12

See more related research

Share


In King County, WA, food insecurity is pervasive among low-income children and inequitable by race, yet WIC utilization is also low. We propose to evaluate an innovative WIC mobile strategy to be implemented in 2020 to advance nutrition and food security equity. Mobile WIC teams will bring services to non-traditional community settings (e.g., food banks and shelters). Informed by client focus groups and piloted in 2019, this responds to client-identified needs–transportation support, food access, and housing, which have not been met by traditional implementation requiring clients to travel to WIC offices. We hypothesize that mobile WIC teams will facilitate access to and increase utilization of WIC education and food benefits, which will advance health equity by increasing food security and nutrition among clients who are disproportionately people of color. The study sample will be WIC eligible, low-income women and children in King County prior to and after implementation (>200,000 clients, 2017-2021).

Related Research

January 2025

A Systematic Review: The Impact of COVID-19 Policy Flexibilities on SNAP and WIC Programmatic Outcomes

The objective of this study was to explore the impact of policy flexibilities deployed during the COVID-19 public health emergency on access, enrollment/retention, benefit utilization, and perceptions of SNAP and WIC. The review identified 37 eligible articles. Twelve studies evaluated policy flexibilities in SNAP only, 21 in WIC only, and 4 in both programs. Across More

December 2024

Opportunities to Improve Summer EBT: Perspectives from state SNAP agencies

Summer Electronic Benefit Transfer (EBT), or SUN Bucks, is a new federal program that provides grocery benefits to low-income families with children during the summer months, when children no longer have access to free or reduced-price meals at school. However, 13 states did not opt into the program when it launched in 2024. To understand More

December 2024

Evidence to Support an Additional CACFP Meal Reimbursement for Family Childcare Home Providers

This policy brief provides evidence supporting the need for an increase in the number of reimbursable meals and snacks under the federal Child and Adult Care Food Program, also known as CACFP, from three to four per child daily. CACFP provides nutritious meals to nearly 625,000 children attending family childcare homes nationwide, primarily from lower-income More