Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children Participant Grocery Store Purchases during the COVID-19 Pandemic in North Carolina
Public Deposited- Creator
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Duffy E.W
- Affiliation: Gillings School of Global Public Health, Department of Health Behavior
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Ng S.W
- Affiliation: Gillings School of Global Public Health, Department of Nutrition
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Bercholz M
- Affiliation: Carolina Population Center
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Davis C.R
- Affiliation: College of Arts and Sciences, Department of Public Policy
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De Marco M
- Affiliation: Gillings School of Global Public Health, Department of Nutrition
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Hall M.G
- Affiliation: Gillings School of Global Public Health, Department of Health Behavior
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Maselko J
- Affiliation: Gillings School of Global Public Health, Department of Epidemiology
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Smith Taillie L
- Affiliation: Gillings School of Global Public Health, Department of Nutrition
- Abstract
- Background: Families participating in the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) experienced barriers to accessing healthy food during the COVID-19 pandemic, but we do not yet understand how WIC participant food purchases shifted during the pandemic. Objectives: We aimed to describe the association between the initial shock of the pandemic in March 2020 and WIC shoppers’ food purchases and changes in purchases before and during the pandemic at a top grocery chain and examine differences in these relationships by duration of WIC use. Methods: We used longitudinal food transaction data from WIC shoppers (n = 2,989,116 shopper-month observations from 175,081 unique WIC shoppers) from 496 stores in a top grocery store chain in North Carolina between October 2019 and May 2021. We used an interrupted time series design to describe the following: 1) the relationship between the initial shock of the pandemic and WIC shopper food purchases and 2) differences in purchases before and during the pandemic. To assess differences in purchases between shoppers consistently using WIC electronic benefit transfer (EBT) cards and shoppers starting or stopping WIC EBT use during the pandemic, we used models stratified by WIC group. Primary outcomes were share (%) of total calories purchased from fruits, vegetables, nuts, and legumes (FV), processed foods, and sugar-sweetened beverages (SSBs). Results: We observed small decreases in the share of total calories from FV (−0.4%) and small increases in the share of calories from processed food (1.1%) and SSBs (0.5%) purchased at this retailer when comparing the pre and post March 2020 periods. Compared with shoppers that started or stopped using WIC benefits during the pandemic, shoppers that used WIC benefits consistently had slightly higher FV and lower processed food and SSB purchases at this retailer. Conclusions: Future studies should examine whether additional supports for nutrient-dense food choices may be needed for families with low incomes in public health emergencies.
- Date of publication
- 2024
- Keyword
- DOI
- Identifier
- Resource type
- Article
- License
- Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 4.0 International
- Journal title
- Current Developments in Nutrition
- Journal volume
- 8
- Journal issue
- 3
- Language
- English
- Version
- Publisher
- Funder
- Funding that made this study possible comes from the Carolina Population Center NICHD-NRSA Population Research Training (T32 HD007168), Carolina Population Center (NIH P2C HD050924), and earlier funding from NC TraCS (National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (NIH UL1TR001111), the Center for Health Equity Research at the University of North Carolina, and Arnold Ventures. K01HL147713 from the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute of the NIH supported Marissa Hall's time writing the paper. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the NIH. This research was supported by a grant from the T32 Cancer Health Disparities Training Grant from the National Cancer Institute of the National Institutes of Health (T32CA128582).
- ISSN
- 2475-2991
- Publisher
- Elsevier B.V.
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