“ With both WIC and SNAP, we need to make sure it’s easier for people who need these services to access them, and part of that really comes down to how we as a society treat people who are living in poverty.” — Loan Kim (PhD ’11) working in San Francisco’s Tenderloin district. Kim went on to become trained as a clinical dietitian, working in a hospital intensive care unit, before deciding she wanted to shift to a career in which she could work with immigrants in preventing the types of nutritionrelated illnesses she was seeing. Kim has spent much of her career collaborating with the WIC program, a national effort in which states receive federal grants for supplemental foods, healthcare referrals, and nutrition education for the more than 6 million low-income pregnant women, new mothers, and their infants and children up to age 5 who are considered at nutritional risk. In late 2021, she and colleagues at the Nutrition Policy Institute worked with the National
WIC Association to issue a report on WIC participant satisfaction and experiences during COVID-19. Kim notes that state WIC programs implemented changes during the pandemic, including virtual enrollment and recertification, increased voucher amounts, and greater flexibility in obtaining services. In a survey of more than 26,000 WIC participants across 12 states conducted in spring 2021, Kim’s group found that most participants were pleased with the changes and hoped that they would continue beyond the time when the pandemic is a concern. “In the past, because of all the barriers, many people would drop off the rolls once they no longer needed support for their infant, and the challenge has always been how we help these participants continue to benefit from the program,” Kim says. “With both WIC and SNAP, we need to make sure it’s easier for people who need these services to access them, and part of that really comes down to how we as a society treat people who are living in poverty.” The UCLA Fielding School has been instrumental in promoting healthier diets for WIC beneficiaries. In the early 2000s, research by Harrison and one of her doctoral students at the time, Dr. Dena Herman (MPH ’95, PhD ’02), now an FSPH adjunct associate professor and associate professor at California State University, Northridge, found that providing WIC recipients with vouchers for fruits and vegetables resulted in sustainable increases in consumption.
The study inspired the first legislative change to overhaul the WIC food package, in 2009 — making it more healthful by adding fruits, vegetables, and whole grains while reducing the amount of juice, milk, and cheese. A 2019 study led by Wang; Dr. Catherine Crespi, FSPH professor of biostatistics; and Pia Chaparro (PhD ’13), one of Wang’s former doctoral students and now an assistant professor at the Tulane University School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine, found that these sweeping changes reduced the risk of obesity for 4-year-olds who had been on the program since birth. Through her volunteer work serving meals at a shelter for people experiencing homelessness, Sarah Roth (PhD ’20) began to think about the limited nutritional options and lack of food choice for people who rely on the charitable food system, including food banks, pantries, and meal programs. Roth notes that many of these programs were developed in the 1980s as a response to an increase in poverty and hunger in the U.S. “The idea has been that there’s a lot of food waste in our system, and a lot of hungry people, so let’s make sure that food gets to them rather than being thrown away,” Roth says. Over the years, though, more people have come to rely on charitable food. Feeding America, the nation’s largest domestic hunger-relief organization, reports that it serves 40 million people, including 12 million children, and for many, the need isn’t temporary. “Previously, these programs hadn’t been conceived as providing consistent nutrition supplementation,” Roth says. “They were to help someone who had just lost their job and needed to get back on their feet. But now, with inequalities becoming more entrenched, people rely on these systems more, and the thinking is that if this is going to be their regular source of food, we need to consider what foods are being accepted
DR. MAY WANG (LEFT), FSPH PROFESSOR OF COMMUNITY HEALTH SCIENCES, SERVES AS A TECHNICAL ADVISER TO THE LOS ANGELES COUNTY FOOD EQUITY ROUNDTABLE, DIRECTED BY SWATI CHANDRA (RIGHT).
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U C L A F I E L D I N G S C H O O L O F P U B L I C H E A LT H M AG A Z I N E