This is a report of the National Academies' Institute of Medicine (Food and Nutrition Board), published here by permission.

In 1994, FNS initiated the WIC Nutrition Education Demonstration Study. The demonstration had two components: a comparison of the effects of innovative and traditional WIC nutrition education for prenatal participants; and a study of the feasibility and effectiveness of providing nutrition education to preschool (three-and-four-year-old) WIC participants. The report summarized here describes the design and implementation of the child nutrition education demonstration and presents findings describing the effectiveness of the demonstration.

The study evaluated the effectiveness of three innovative approaches to nutrition education in the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children. Two of these education innovations were designed for educating prenatal women; the third focused on nutrition education for 3- and 4-year-old WIC participants. This executive summary and report describe the evaluation and results of the educational interventions for prenatal women.

The WIC Nutrition Education Assessment Study was conducted by Abt Associates Inc. of Cambridge, Massachusetts, under contract with the Food and Nutrition Service (FNS) of the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA). The study was designed by FNS to fill several important gaps in information about the nutrition education component of the WIC Program.

This publication is based on the WIC Infant Feeding Practices Study (WIC-IFPS) sponsored by FNS. The WIC-IFPS is a one-year longitudinal study, which describes the infant feeding practices over the first year of life among a nationally representative sample of approximately 900 mothers who participated in WIC while they were pregnant.

FNS asked Mathematica Policy Research, Inc., (MPR) to assess the CPS estimates in relation to alternative estimates from the Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP), which collects longitudinal monthly income data.