80 WIC participants in a mid-atlantic city were surveyed, and remoted interest in HIV tesitng if offered at WIC. Barriers included concerns about privacy and intimate partner violence.
"The intervention helped low-income young mothers with overweight or obesity improve social cognitive factors related to lifestyle change. Intervention participants ate less fat and fast food over the short term. However, the intervention was not effective in helping these mothers eat more fruits and vegetables or drink fewer sugar-sweetened beverages in the short term."
"Participation in WIC during pregnancy was significantly associated with being up-to-date at 2, 6, and 36 months. Participation in WIC was associated with an increased likelihood of up-to-date vaccination status, and engaging eligible foreign-born families in programs such as WIC might provide an opportunity to increase on-time vaccination "
Diet quality was assessed among participants in the WIC program across three time points following the WIC food package shift instituted nationally in 2009. Retention rates were 91% at 12 months and 89% at 18 months. For our WIC study, we augmented retention by developing a home data collection protocol and increased focus on staff diversity training.
Ver Ploeg et al. (2015) examined the types of stores households usually frequent for food shopping, how they get there, and how far they travel. The study showed that about 90 percent of all households shop at large stores such as supermarkets and supercenters, and this percentage does not vary much by participation in SNAP or the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC), or by income or by mode of travel to the store.
CHEW, a smartphone app provides shopping tools, including barcode scanners and calculators to maximize the WIC benefit redemption rate. Testing found that the app was successful with WIC mothers with moderate levels of app usage.
WIC-participating retailers must adhere to very different minimum stocking requirements across states, which may result in disparities in food and beverage products available to WIC recipients.
Recent data shows that the retail price markup of the firm that wins the state WIC contract does not change when the contract is awarded, but that its shelf space increases in excess of the share of WIC customers.
Minority participants were significantly more likely to redeem higher-priced brands of infant F&Vs, but more likely to choose lower-priced brands of bread. Participants shopping in urban stores or mid sized stores (with 5-9 registers) were less likely to choose higher-priced brands compared to rural stores or large stores (with 9+ registers).
Results suggest that WIC changes improved the availability of healthy foods in small stores in New Orleans
