Association for Public Policy Analysis & Management

The goal of the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) is to support the health and well-being of low-income women, infants, and children by providing pregnant women and children up to five years old with access to nutritious food. While the health benefits of WIC for young children have been well studied (Cole & Fox, 2008; Lee & Mackey-Bilaver, 2007), its potential non-health benefits, including improvements in children’s early cognitive and socio-emotional wellbeing, have been practically unexplored. Ongoing research using a sibling fixed-effects framework suggests that WIC is unassociated with children’s cognitive outcomes but predicts lowertotal behavior problems (B= -3.304, SE= 1.620, p< 0.05), and internalizing behaviors (B= -4.457, SE = 1.719, p< 0.001) at school entry. These results suggest that after accounting for family level variation, WIC is associated with modest decreases in behavioral problems, between 15 to 20% of a standard deviation.

However, what is not yet known is whether those effects persist throughout the elementary years.

The goal of the present study is to expand that work by examining associations between WIC during early childhood (ages 0 – 5) and a broad set of cognitive and behavioral outcomes later in childhood, between the ages of 7 and 10.

Data are drawn from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth – Child Study (NLSY-CS) (N= 5,095) and are analyzed using comparisons across siblings to address the substantial bias associated with families’ selection into the WIC program. To capture WIC use, we compute a ratio of reported WIC receipt at each parent interview between child ages 0 and 5 relative to the number of times parents were asked about WIC use during that period. Across models, we regress each child outcome on WIC exposure and a series of child-level covariates in a sibling fixed effects framework. The Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test (PPVT) and math and reading subscales of the Peabody Individual Achievement Test (PIAT) are used to measure cognitive skills, and the internalizing and externalizing behavior problems, hyperactivity, and total behavior problems subscales of the Behavior Problems Index (BPI) are used to measure socioemotional skills. Child outcomes are taken from the first available score between the ages of 7 and 10. By using a sibling fixed effect framework we will be able to determine if the positive effects of WIC on behavior problems, which we have previously documented, persist during childhood. Further, we will also be able to examine if WIC use in early childhood is associated with delayed benefits to cognitive development, once children enter school, despite null effects on cognitive outcomes prior to school entry.