WIC Program Description

The Women Infant and Children (WIC) Supplemental Nutrition Program is a supplemental food and nutrition program for low-income pregnant, breastfeeding, and postpartum women and children under age five who have a nutritional risk.

Program Goal
	The goal of the WIC program is to decrease the risk of poor birth outcomes and to improve the health of participants during critical times of growth and development. To meet this goal, we provide nutrition education, breastfeeding promotion, medical care referrals, and specific supplemental nutritious foods which are high in protein and/or iron. The specific nutritious foods provided to participants include peanut butter, beans, milk, cheese, eggs, iron-fortified cereal, iron-fortified infant formula and juices.

Program Description
	WIC is unique among federally administered programs in that it provides specific supplemental nutritious food and nutrition education to a specific target population as a short term intervention and adjunct to ongoing health care. The supplemental foods provided by the WIC program are designed to meet the participants enhanced dietary needs for specific nutrients during brief but critical periods of physiological development. It is "short term", in that, on average, WIC participants receive services for approximately two years.

Program Effectiveness
	Numerous scientific studies show that pregnant women who participate in the WIC program seek earlier prenatal care and consume a healthier diet. The improved nutrition and nutrition education provided to enrolled women and children result in longer pregnancies, fewer and very low birth weight babies, and fewer fetal and infant deaths. This translates into enormous savings in health care dollars. Specifically, after reviewing 17 cost benefit studies, the U.S. General Accounting Office (GAO) published a report in 1992 that found that WIC saved $3.50 for every $1.00 spent on WIC. Most of the savings, or approximately $2.89, was saved in the first year of life. The GAO also noted that additional savings could be realized if more pregnant women were enrolled on the program. They conservatively estimated an overall annual savings of $51 million in federal and state health care funds if WIC served all eligible pregnant women. For example, it costs $544 a year for a pregnant woman to participate in WIC. By contrast, it costs the tax payers $22,000 per pound to nurture a low birth weight baby (less than 5.5 pounds) to the normal weight of 7 pounds in a neonatal intensive care unit. WIC prenatal care benefits reduce the rate of very low birth weight babies by 44 percent.

Program Outreach
	Working families are among the most unlikely to know of WIC services since they often believe they are not eligible because they work. The WIC program has used a media campaign in California to increase awareness of the WIC program among working families who may qualify for the program. Many of California's working families receive low wages that do not allow them to purchase sufficient healthy foods for themselves and their families or to adequately access preventive health care services such as immunizations. Our goal is to encourage these families to participate in WIC and to benefit from improved nutrition, nutrition counseling, and medical care referrals while saving taxpayer dollars.

Program Funding
	WIC receives federal funding from the U.S. Department of Agriculture. California contracts with 82 local county and private non-profit agencies to deliver WIC services at the local level through over 650 local WIC centers. WIC has been well received by policy makers over the last several years. Significant funding increases has allowed WIC to grow from serving 520,000 participants a month in 1991 to over 1.2 million participants per month in 1998. In the last few years, Congress has "level funded" the program and has provided no funding for program expansion. To maintain the level of services, the WIC program has entered into over $200 million in innovative rebate contacts with juice, infant formula, and infant cereal manufacturers. This allows California WIC to serve about 400,000 additional women and children at no additional cost to the taxpayer. The Stanislaus County WIC Program serves 18,550 participants every month.