On behalf of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and the National WIC Association, we are thrilled to announce the five WIC State agencies that have been awarded subgrants through a competitive process for the MORE WIC! Project.
Congratulations to Mississippi, Connecticut, Inter-Tribal Council of Nevada, Inter-Tribal Council of Arizona, and Washington DC WIC!
MORE WIC! is a cooperative agreement with the USDA Food and Nutrition Service, led by the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, with support from the National WIC Association. The project is part of USDA's broader plan to modernize and strengthen the program.
Nationwide, 5.5 million people who are likely to be WIC-eligible are enrolled in Medicaid and/or SNAP, but are not enrolled in WIC. The MORE WIC! Project is committed to streamlining work by reducing the burden of submitting and reviewing multiple programmatic applications. MORE WIC! will support WIC State agencies through funding and technical assistance to conduct data matching projects with programs to improve efficiency and reduce administrative burden.
Over the next 30 months, the five WIC State agencies will use data from Medicaid, SNAP, and/or TANF to identify families that are likely to be WIC-eligible, but not enrolled in WIC. They will use this information to connect with families and assess them for WIC eligibility. In addition to up to $400,000 in funding, all subgrant awardees will receive tailored technical assistance to support and evaluate their projects. All WIC State agencies may request technical assistance related to data matching, learn more about the project, or discuss their needs by reaching out directly to the MORE WIC! Team via email ([email protected]).
Data Matching Partner: Medicaid
Contact Strategy: text messaging
The Mississippi WIC Program has 16 local agencies serving approximately 60,000 WIC participants monthly. This accounts for approximately 40% of all those who are eligible for WIC services. More than half of Mississippi residents live in rural areas, which creates unique barriers to participation. Through this project, Mississippi WIC aims to identify likely eligible, unenrolled individuals by pursuing a data sharing agreement with Medicaid and developing targeted, culturally tailored text messages to contact these individuals. Mississippi will conduct its project with guidance from an advisory council.
Data Matching Partners: SNAP, Medicaid
Contact Strategies: text messaging, social media
Connecticut WIC serves over 50,000 clients per month, with a coverage rate of approximately 47% of the eligible population. The project will pursue data sharing agreements with both SNAP and Medicaid and will implement a phased approach to data matching and outreach. The project will initially focus on pregnant women and then expand to include children. An advisory council will guide the development of culturally appropriate text and social media messages, especially for populations with limited English proficiency. Connecticut WIC participants have reported speaking at least 40 different languages, with Spanish the most common.
Data Matching Partners: SNAP, Medicaid
Contact Strategies: text messaging, phone calls, video messages
The Inter Tribal Council of Arizona Inc. (ITCA) administers WIC through 11 local agencies on Tribal lands and one urban American Indian Health Center. ITCA WIC has a data sharing agreement with the Arizona Department of Economic Security to receive monthly files with SNAP participant data. They will use this data to send a text message to those who are likely eligible for WIC. To increase efficiency in the enrollment process, SNAP data is also uploaded into an online pre-application form for additional follow-up with a phone call directly by staff. This project will build on current activities by testing and comparing new outreach strategies guided by an advisory council, as well as by pursuing a data sharing agreement with Medicaid to assess the feasibility of a three-way match of Medicaid, SNAP, and WIC data. ITCA will also contract with Arizona State University to expand innovation and evaluation of outreach.
Data Matching Partners: SNAP, Medicaid
Contact Strategies: social media, text messaging, email, in-person community engagement
The Inter-Tribal Council of Nevada (ITCN) WIC serves a diverse population across 28 Tribal reservations in Nevada. Over the last decade, enrollment in the ITCN WIC program has declined considerably, especially in remote areas. The focus of this project is to enhance awareness and access to WIC across the 28 reservations, with a focus on the most remote service areas. ITCN WIC will pursue data sharing agreements with both SNAP and Medicaid to identify likely eligible, unenrolled individuals and families. With guidance from an advisory council, ITCN will test the effectiveness of culturally tailored outreach through direct mail, phone, text messaging, and email, supported by in-person community engagement events with mobile units.
Data Matching Partners: Medicaid, TANF
Outreach Strategies: social media, text messaging, email
Washington DC (DC) WIC serves over 8,000 households with around 14,000 enrolled individuals. The program faces significant gaps in coverage in underserved areas with large Black and Hispanic populations. The data matching plan builds on DC WIC’s previous success with TANF data sharing, which identified over 7,000 likely eligible, unenrolled families. The project will extend these efforts to Medicaid by formalizing data sharing agreements, streamlining the certification process, and enhancing targeted communication with families that are likely eligible for WIC. Specific objectives include implementing a monthly data matching protocol, forming a community advisory group to guide strategies, and testing personalized contact methods like social media, text messaging, and email.
Congratulations again to the subgrantees! For more information about MORE WIC!, please visit www.morewic.org.
This project has been funded at least in part with Federal funds from the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The contents of this publication do not necessarily reflect the view or policies of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, nor does mention of trade names, commercial products, or organizations imply endorsement by the U.S. Government.