School of Community and Environmental Health, Old Dominion University, Norfolk, VA, United States.
Department of Marketing, Feliciano School of Business, Montclair State University, Montclair, NJ, United States.
JMIR Mhealth Uhealth. 2020 Oct 14;8(10):e20720. doi: 10.2196/20720.
The Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) is one of the most important food assistance programs in the United States, serving 6.4 million low-income, eligible women, infants, and children under 5 years of age in 2019. In the program, participants are prescribed a list of food benefits, which can be redeemed in WIC-authorized stores. However, there are multiple behavioral barriers in the program and the stores that prevent participants from redeeming the benefits fully.
This study aims to examine the relationship between the use of a widely used mobile phone app, WICShopper, and the redemption of the prescribed food packages.
WIC administrative data were obtained from West Virginia for the period January 2019 to January 2020 and included 30,440 WIC households that had received food benefits in that period. The redemption rates of 18 WIC food benefits were compared between app users and nonapp users, that is, those who never used the app in the study period. The use behaviors were defined for the app users, including the number of active use benefit cycles, active benefit cycle rates, number of active use days in the cycle, and proportion rates of daytime use. Panel linear regressions were applied to examine how the redemption rates were related to these behaviors over time.
App users consistently had higher average redemption rates than nonapp users; the difference ranged from 3.6% (4.8% relative) for infant formula to 14.3% (40.7% relative) for fish. After controlling for sociodemographics, the coefficients of app use were significantly positive for all benefit categories except for WIC-eligible nutritionals. More active cycles and active days in the cycle were significantly related to redemption rates for all categories, except for frozen juice (coefficient=-0.002, P=.09). Daytime app access was positively associated with redemption rates for most food benefits except only a few, such as infant formula (coefficient=-0.03, P<.001).
Use of the WIC app was significantly related to higher redemption rates across food benefits, although the association varied across benefit categories. More active days were positively related to benefit redemptions across food categories, and the app's daytime use was positively associated with the redemption of most benefit categories. These findings suggest that the WIC app can be an important tool for the promotion of benefit redemption among WIC participants.
特殊补充营养计划（WIC）是美国最重要的食品援助计划之一，为 2019 年 640 万符合条件的低收入妇女、婴儿和 5 岁以下儿童提供服务。在该计划中，参与者被规定了一份食品福利清单，可以在 WIC 授权的商店中兑换。然而，该计划和商店存在多种行为障碍，阻止参与者充分兑换福利。
本研究旨在考察广泛使用的手机应用程序 WICShopper 的使用与规定食品套餐的兑换之间的关系。
从西弗吉尼亚州获得了 2019 年 1 月至 2020 年 1 月期间的 WIC 行政数据，其中包括该期间领取食品福利的 30440 个 WIC 家庭。比较了应用程序用户和非应用程序用户（即在研究期间从未使用过该应用程序的用户）对 18 种 WIC 食品福利的兑换率。为应用程序用户定义了使用行为，包括活跃使用福利周期的数量、活跃福利周期率、周期内活跃使用天数以及白天使用率。应用面板线性回归检验了随着时间的推移，这些行为与兑换率之间的关系。
应用程序用户的平均兑换率始终高于非应用程序用户；差异范围从婴儿配方奶粉的 3.6%（4.8%相对）到鱼类的 14.3%（40.7%相对）。在控制了社会人口统计学因素后，除 WIC 合格营养品外，所有福利类别的应用程序使用系数均为正。更多的活跃周期和周期内的活跃天数与所有类别的兑换率显著相关，除了冷冻果汁（系数=-0.002，P=.09）。白天访问应用程序与大多数食品福利的兑换率呈正相关，除了少数福利，如婴儿配方奶粉（系数=-0.03，P<.001）。
尽管关联因福利类别而异，但 WIC 应用程序的使用与所有食品福利的更高兑换率显著相关。更多的活跃天数与所有食品类别的福利兑换呈正相关，应用程序的白天使用与大多数福利类别的兑换呈正相关。这些发现表明，WIC 应用程序可以成为促进 WIC 参与者福利兑换的重要工具。
