This report, the latest in a series of annual reports on WIC eligibility, presents 2015 national and state estimates of the number of people eligible for WIC benefits and the percents of the eligible population and the US population covered by the program, including estimates by participant category.
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.
The Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010 (HHFKA; PL 111-296) required the USDA Food and Nutrition Service to conduct a demonstration that adds Medicaid to the list of programs used to directly certify students for free school meals. Although students receiving Medicaid are not categorically eligible for free meals, the DC-M demonstration authorizes selected States and districts to use income information from Medicaid files to directly certify those students found to be eligible for free meals.
This report estimates the average monthly food costs for each of 5 WIC participant subgroups and estimates total dollars spent on 17 major categories of WIC-eligible foods in FY 2010. The participant and food level costs in this report are USDA’s first estimates since implementation of the 2009 WIC food package changes.
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.
This report offers updated estimates of the population that met these criteria and was eligible for WIC benefits in each of the years 2000 through 2009. This report includes some new estimates not included in previous reports: (1) estimates of the number of eligibles and coverage rates by state; (2) updated estimates in U.S. territories; (3) confidence intervals; and (4) estimates of eligible children by single year of age.
This study describes some of the choices state agencies made as they exercised the flexibility offered during the implementation and describes the resulting food packages.
The purpose of this report is to illustrate the types and amounts of foods being prescribed within the WIC food package for each category of participants. This report does not provide information on redemption of the food prescriptions, or on actual food consumption; at this time, comprehensive data are available only on food prescriptions.
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.