Despite evidence that participation in WIC is associated with improved health outcomes, only about 50 percent of WIC-eligible individuals participated in the program in the average month of 2020. To address this gap, the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 provided $390 million to USDA to carry out outreach, innovation, and program modernization efforts (referred to as “modernization projects”) to increase participation and redemption of benefits for both the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) and WIC Farmers’ Market Nutrition Program (FMNP), implemented across 89 WIC State agencies and 51 FMNP State agencies. The goals of these modernization efforts are to increase WIC participation and redemption of benefits as well as to reduce disparities in program delivery.
The overall goal of this evaluation study is to track progress on these outcomes through key measures and review project-specific information and evaluations being conducted by the organizations leading the projects (e.g., State or local agency projects, waiver use, contracted projects, grants). The study team aims to determine whether the projects were implemented as intended and to identify key elements of implementation that vary across State agency projects (e.g., reach, dose, waiver use, technical or programmatic approach), specifically whether the modernization projects are associated with—
- Increases in enrollment, participation, retention, and redemption of benefits;
- Improvements in participant experience; and
- Reduced disparities in program delivery in WIC and FMNP.
The team will collect and analyze data from surveys, interviews, and/or focus groups with program participants, vendors, project personnel, and State and/or local agency staff; we will also conduct case study observations of the modernization projects, collect and assess supplemental information or documentation to understand how the projects were implemented, and collect and analyze administrative data from WIC State agency Management Information Systems (MIS) and Electronic Benefit Transfer (EBT) systems, as needed to support the evaluation.