WIC Nutrition Risk Criteria A Scientific Assessment (1996) / Chapter Skim
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1 OVERVIEW
1 OVERVIEW
Pages 23-40
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The WIC program is a supplemental food and nutrition program to help meet the special needs of low-income women, infants, and children during these periods. In addition to categorical criteria and income standards, eligibility for participation in the WIC program requires evidence of nutrition risk.
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Identifying gaps in the scientific knowledge base for current nutrition risk criteria used by the WIC program. ' Throughout this report, the generic terms state WIC agency and state agency are used to depot-e programs or program requirements that apply uniformly to state, territorial, or tribal WIC programs.
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· Identifying the practicality of consensus recommendations for nutrition risk criteria for the variety of WIC program delivery settings. This report responds to these tasks.
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Competent professional authorities at the local level tailor WIC food packages to meet specific individual needs, based on guidance from state WIC agencies. Special formulas or medical foods may be provided if medically indicated for infants, children, and women with special dietary needs.
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In summary, the overarching goal of the WIC program is to improve the nutrition and health status of women, infants, and children, which in turn should improve pregnancy outcomes and promote optimal child growth and development. Although supplemental food assistance is the cornerstone of the WIC program, nutrition education and health care and social service referrals are also integral components of benefit to WIC participants.
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Each state WIC agency establishes and uses specific assessment criteria for nutrition risk within federal guidelines. The minimum information that must be collected on each WIC program participant includes: height (length for infants)
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who were determined by competent professionals to be at nutrition risk because of inadequate nutrition and inadequate income. Participants received specified food items either directly by picking them up at WIC centers or through home delivery, or by using coupons or vouchers to redeem specific food items at local grocery stores.
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The 1978 amendments further reinforced the preventive focus of the WIC program by amending the purpose to add "to prevent the occurrence of health problems and improve the health status of these persons" (Public Law 95-627~. The 1978 law reiterated the earlier provision requiring nutrition risk determination by specifying that individuals would not be eligible solely on the basis of low income but also had to exhibit evidence of nutrition risk, as determined by a competent professional authority.
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reduced the maximum income levels that states could use to define eligibility for WIC program participation by lowering the income level for eligibility for reduced-price school lunches from 195 to 185 percent of the poverty guidelines. This law also reduced the number of required items that states had to include in their annual program plan in order to receive WIC program funds.
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The regulation also codified the name change included in the Healthy Meals for Healthy Americans Act and modified the definition of nutrition risk to include more medical and health conditions previously categorized as predisposing nutrition risks as direct nutrition risks (~Federal Register, April 19, 1995, 60~75~: 19,487-19,491~. Program Size The WIC program operates in each of the 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, Guam, the American Virgin Islands, and 33 American Indian tribal organizations.
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Chapters 4 through 7 examine the scientific basis for WIC nutrition risk criteria: a description of each risk criterion, the prevalence of the condition in the U.S. population and WIC participants (if available)
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Moreover, the evidence presented in Chapter 2 on the effectiveness of the WIC program for infants can be used to infer the degree to which these two risk criteria for infants serve as indicators of health and nutrition benefit from the WIC program. Throughout its work, the committee faced a number of limitations regarding the use of currently available data on nutrition risks in the WIC program setting.
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Nevertheless, the available studies attempting to control for nondiet factors form the backbone of researchers' understanding of nutrition intervention and, when available, were emphasized in the reviews. Names, definitions, and cutoff points used with nutrition risk criteria vary substantially across research studies, and these made comparison of results a difficult task.
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. Through the public meetings and visits to WIC program clinics, the committee obtained valuable information about the use of nutrition risk criteria in WIC clinics, the methods of conducting nutrition assessments and determining appropriate nutrition and health interventions, and practical considerations.
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1992. 1992 Biennial Report on the Special Supplemental Food Program for Women, Infants and Children and on the Commodity Supplemental Food Program.
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