The Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) is administered by the Food and Nutrition Service (FNS) of the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). WIC benefits include nutritious supplemental foods; nutrition education; counseling, including breastfeeding promotion and support; and referrals to health care, social service, and other community providers for pregnant, breastfeeding, and postpartum women, infants, and children up to the age of 5 years. 1 For women and their unborn children, WIC seeks to improve fetal development and reduce the incidence of low birth weight, short gestation, and anemia through intervention during the prenatal period. For infants and children, WIC seeks to provide nutritious foods during critical times of growth and development in an effort to prevent health problems and to improve the health status of these children. The reports, including PC2012, contain information on a census of WIC participants in April of the reporting year.

The Women, Infants and Children (WIC) Program is a federally funded health and nutrition program that provides assistance to pregnant and postpartum individuals, infants, and children up to age five. WIC supports California families by offering: - Food benefits based on individual participants’ nutritional needs and risk assessment; - Nutritional education and breastfeeding support; - Healthcare referrals and other community services. Participants must also meet income guidelines and other criteria. WIC local agencies (84 as of 2024) provide services monthly to approximately one million participants at 500 sites in local communities throughout the State. The food benefits can be used to purchase healthy supplemental foods from WIC authorized vendor stores throughout the State (about 3,700 in 2024). Certified WIC participants are individuals who have completed the eligibility and enrollment process and are approved to receive benefits and services. Participating WIC clients refer to certified individuals who are actively issued benefits during a specific reporting period. There are three reports providing detailed information about WIC participants by year and month in California: (1) WIC Participants by County of Residence and by WIC Category; (2) WIC Participants by County of Residence and by Race/Ethnicity; and (3) WIC Participants by County of Residence, by WIC Category and by Race/Ethnicity. Each report is split into two files: 1) 2010-2018 data and 2) 2019 data onward. This is due to the transition to electronic benefit transfer in June 2019. Prior to June 2019, WIC issued paper food instruments (FIs {i.e., WIC checks}) to individual participants for purchasing supplemental, nutritious foods. Between June 2019 and March 2020, California WIC transitioned from the FI delivery system to a new Electronic Benefit Transfer (EBT) system. With the new system, each family’s WIC food benefits are loaded to its EBT account and accessed by its California WIC card, which works like a debit card. As a result of the change, the benefit redemptions (i.e., purchases) are no longer recorded at the individual level, but at the family level; which results in the 2019 and later data file not including a “Number of Redeemed Participants” column.

This dataset contains the locations of Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) program vendors.

WIC Participant and Program Characteristics 2018 (PC 2018) summarizes the demographic characteristics of participants in the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) nationwide in April 2018. It includes information on participant income and nutrition risk characteristics, estimates breastfeeding initiation rates for WIC infants, and describes WIC members of migrant farm-worker families.

This dataset includes data on weight status for children aged 3 months to 4 years old from Women, Infant, and Children Participant and Program Characteristics (WIC-PC). This data is used for DNPAO's Data, Trends, and Maps database, which provides national and state specific data on obesity, nutrition, physical activity, and breastfeeding. For more information about WIC-PC visit https://www.fns.usda.gov/wic/national-survey-wic-participants.

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The City of Philadelphia Office of Children and Families (OCF) partners with local food banks to find locations in the city for meal sites. The food banks provide information such as address, hours of operation, and eligibility that OCF enters to feed the meal site finder application. As needed, OCF updates the active status of each site.