The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine  convened an expert committee to review and assess the nutritional status and food and nutritional needs of the WIC-eligible population and provide recommendations based on its review and grounded in the most recently available science. The committee produced three reports as part of this task. 

The phase I interim report, is the second of three reports. The first report, the Evaluation of White Potatoes in the Cash Value Voucher: Letter Report, recommended allowing white potatoes for purchase with the cash value voucher. This second report presents the evidence, analyses, and framework that will be applied to develop the final report (phase II), which will include recommendations for potential modifications to the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) food packages.

WIC Participant and Program Characteristics 2014 (PC 2014) summarizes the demographic characteristics of participants in the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) nationwide in April 2014. It includes information on participant income and nutrition risk characteristics, estimates breastfeeding initiation rates for WIC infants, and describes WIC members of migrant farm-worker families. PC 2014 is the most recent in a series of reports generated from WIC State management information system data biennially since 1992.

The main objectives of this report are to describe how Loving Support© Peer Counseling is currently implemented in WIC state agencies and local agencies; and to draw comparisons with the program’s implementation in 2008, when the last study was conducted. 

At the request of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, an expert Institute of Medicine (IOM) committee is undertaking a comprehensive review of the food packages used in the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) to bring the program into alignment with current dietary guidelines. In this letter report, the first of three reports to result from this review, the IOM committee evaluates the 2009 regulation that excluded white potatoes from purchase with the WIC cash value voucher (CVV) and considers whether white potatoes should henceforth be allowed as a WIC-eligible vegetable in the CVV.

The WIC Infant and Toddler Feeding Practices Study 2 (WIC ITFPS-2)/ “Feeding My Baby” Study is designed to describe the feeding practices used by caregivers and measure the nutrition outcomes of children who participate in WIC. The study uses a longitudinal design; caregivers respond to surveys periodically from a prenatal interview through the infant’s third birthday. This study will provide a series of reports. The current report presents results from the prenatal survey.

FNS funded the WIC Breastfeeding Policy Inventory (WIC BPI) to collect data on breastfeeding policies and practices, as well as the breastfeeding measures in use by SAs and LAs. The WIC BPI was a census of the 90 WIC State agencies (including Indian Tribal Organizations (ITOs) and U.S. Territories) and the approximately 1,800 local WIC agencies.

This report is a census of women, infants, and children who were participating in the WIC program in April, 2012. The report includes information on participant income and nutrition risk characteristics, and estimates breastfeeding initiation rates for WIC infants.

The purpose of this study was to examine how to define “adequacy” of SNAP allotments objectively in the context of program goals to improve food security and access to a healthy diet, existing data sources that could inform an assessment of the adequacy of existing and potential alternative SNAP allotments, and new data requirements to strengthen the evidence-base and allow for further rigorous analyses. 

In 2006, FNS asked the Institute of Medicine to review the WIC food packages. The IOM proposed major changes to improve nutrition and encourage breastfeeding but also expressed the concern that changes related to partial breastfeeding may have unintended consequences. The IOM recommended that FNS conduct an impact study evaluating the birth month breastfeeding changes to the WIC food packages.