Change is good! Impact of the changes to the WIC foods on California WIC families

In 2005, the Institute of Medicine's report "WIC Food Packages: Time for a Change," recommended changes to align the WIC food packages with the 2005 Dietary Guidelines for Americans. California completed the change to the new WIC foods on October 1, 2009. In the six months preceding the change, California implemented a comprehensive statewide nutrition education campaign focused on three major changes to the food package: fruits and vegetables, whole grains and lower fat dairy. Recognizing the unprecedented opportunity to study the impact of the policy change on the diets of low-income young families, the California WIC Program conducted a study designed to measure (1) the impact of enhanced nutrition education and (2) the impact of the food package change on California WIC families' consumption of fruits and vegetables, whole grains and lower fat dairy. It was hypothesized that nutrition education alone would lead to significant changes in WIC participant behavior and that the new food package would lead to even greater changes. Phone surveys of random samples of ~3000 WIC families were conducted at 3 times: T1) prior to educating participants about the new package; T2) after educating participants about the new package but before the new package started; and T3) six months after the new package was adopted. Surveys were conducted by telephone, in English or Spanish, by an independent research firm with callers blind to the study hypotheses. Preliminary analysis of the first two samples documented a significant impact of the education alone on participant consumption behavior. This session will discuss the impact of the WIC food package change on WIC participant behavior, comparing behavior before and after the change.