The national cost of the food package benefits in WIC alone was close to $4.6 billion in 2016. Department of Agriculture (USDA), the federal WIC administrative agency, mandates nutritional criteria for the program (e.g., only whole grain bread is allowed) and provides grants to the states, who manage their own WIC programs. The WIC program is administrated at both the federal and the state level.
The positive health impact of WIC participation is well documented. The WIC program serves approximately 8 million Americans monthly, including 50% of newborn infants and 25% of children nationwide. Different classes of WIC participants are prescribed different food packages providing different quantities of foodstuffs, rather than being awarded a dollar amount.
A key focus of the WIC program is to provide nutritionally targeted foods, or food packages, at no cost to low-income pregnant and post-partum women, infants up to one year of age, and children up to five years of age, in addition to nutrition education and health interventions, especially for the support of breastfeeding. The Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) is one of the largest food assistance programs in the U.S. This may not only help contain WIC program costs, but help participants manage their own non-WIC food expenses as well. The results can help develop interventions that encourage targeted participants to redeem lower-priced but equivalently healthy brands. Race/ethnicity and store characteristics may be significant factors in participants’ brand choices. Participants shopping in urban stores or midsized stores (with 5–9 registers) were less likely to choose higher-priced brands compared to rural stores or large stores (with 9+ registers). 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. Mixed effects logistic regression models were used to analyze the choice of higher-priced brands over lower-priced brands. This study used the WIC Electronic Benefit Transfer (EBT) data for 239,062 Virginia WIC participants’ brand choices in infant fruits and vegetables (F&Vs) and whole grain bread in May 2014–February 2015, one of the first such data sets available in the U.S. To aid the program’s food cost containment efforts, it is important to understand the individual and store characteristics associated with brand choices. The Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) often allows participants to redeem food benefits for various brands at different costs.
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