Poster #34 - Early Childhood WIC Use and Cognitive and Behavioral Outcomes at School Entry

• In Event: 3-001 - Poster Session 2 during Breakfast

Abstract

The goal of the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) is to increase the health and quality of life of low-income women, infants, and children by providing pregnant women and children up to five years old with access to healthy food. While the health benefits of WIC have been well studied (Cole & Fox, 2008; Macknet-Bilaver, 2007), its potential non-health benefits, including improvements in cognitive and socio-emotional wellbeing, have been practically unexplored. The one study to examine non-health outcomes found that early WIC exposure predicted better cognitive outcomes (Jackson, 2015). The goal of the present study is to expand that work and examine the relationship between early WIC use and a broad set of cognitive and behavioral outcomes at school entry.
Data were drawn from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth - Child Study (NLSY-CS) (N = 5,095) and were analyzed using two approaches, OLS and sibling fixed effects models. To capture WIC use, we computed a ratio of reported WIC receipt between child ages 0 and 5 relative to the number of times parents were asked about WIC use during that period. Across models, we regressed WIC exposure and a series of covariates on each child outcome. OLS results suggested that WIC use was associated with lower cognitive outcomes and increased behavior problems (see Table 1). In sibling fixed effects models, however, WIC use was unassociated with cognitive outcomes and was associated with lower total behavior problems and externalizing behaviors (see Table 2).
Comparing results from these two approaches demonstrates the challenges in identifying the effects of voluntary programs. Any bivariate association between WIC receipt and child wellbeing is likely biased by a selection process into WIC whereby more disadvantaged families are more likely to seek and receive services because they are more likely to need them. Covariates cannot fully mitigate this bias, which is likely why in OLS models WIC receipt predicted worse outcomes. Sibling models in which children in the same family who differ on early WIC receipt are compared provide a more accurate counterfactual. Results from these models suggest that after accounting for negative selection into the program, WIC is associated with modest decreases in behavioral problems, between 15 to 20% of a standard deviation. The size and significance of these estimates are sensitive to the inclusion of specific covariates, however, likely because sibling models suffer from low statistical power.
 

Authors

• Caitlin Hines, Georgetown University
  Presenting Author

• Rebecca Ryan, Georgetown University