The Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children—commonly known as WIC—is celebrating 50 years of improving the health of participants, including those who are pregnant, new parents, infants, and children under five. The American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 provided the US Department of Agriculture with $390 million, available through FY 2024, to carry out outreach, innovation, and program modernization efforts to increase participation and redemption of benefits for both the WIC program and the WIC Farmers' Market Nutrition Program. The USDA contracted with Mathematica and their partners, including the Nutrition Policy Institute, to design and implement an evaluation of these projects being implemented across 89 WIC State agencies and 51 Farmers Market Nutrition Program State agencies. The evaluation will assess whether the modernization projects being implemented are associated with increases in enrollment, participation, retention, and redemption of benefits; improvements in participant experience; and reduced disparities in program delivery. The five-year project began in September 2023. NPI research project team members will include Lorrene Ritchie, Danielle Lee, Celeste Felix, KC Whitsett and Reka Vasicsek.
Editor - Director of the Nutrition Policy Institute and Cooperative Extension Nutrition Specialist