The WIC Program: Recommended Data

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The WIC Program: Background, Trends, and Economic Issues, 2009 Edition

ERS has funded WIC-related questions—such as program participation, height and weight, nutritional status, and dietary intake—in a number of nationwide surveys. This enhances the surveys’ usefulness in addressing new and emerging food and nutrition assistance issues.

Early Childhood Longitudinal Study-Birth Cohort (ECLS-B)—A longitudinal nationally representative sample of about 12,000 children born during the year 2001, who are followed through the first grade. The ECLS-B offers the opportunity to examine the relationship between children's participation in WIC and a variety of issues, such as infant feeding practices, cognitive performance, and school progress.

• Data funded by USDA relate to participation in WIC and other USDA food and nutrition assistance programs, infant feeding practices, children's household food security, and children's height and weight.
• The study focuses on factors affecting readiness for school, and information is collected each year from parents, teachers, birth records, and the children themselves.
• Information about these children was first collected when they were about 9 months old, with additional data collected at 2 years old, 4 years old, in kindergarten, and in first grade.
• Study participants come from diverse socioeconomic and racial/ethnic backgrounds, oversampling children who are Asian and Pacific Islander, American Indian, or Chinese; twins; and children with low and very low birthweights.
• Data are currently available for the first two waves. For more information, see the National Center for Education Statistics' ECLS website.

Other National Data Sets Useful in WIC Research—Other surveys and datasets relevant to WIC include: the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES), the Continuing Survey of Food Intakes by Individuals (CSFII), the Current Population Survey (CPS), Food and Nutrition Service Program Operations Data, the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID), the Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP), the Survey of Program Dynamics (SPD), and the National Survey of America's Families (NSAF).

FANRP Project Database—Provides details on the agency's Food Assistance and Nutrition Research Program (FANRP) research projects. See WIC-related projects, including the project's objective, funding level, researchers, and expected completion date.