 Is WIC effective in improving pregnancy-related outcomes? An empirical reassessmentEconomics & Human Biology, 2022, vol. 47, issue C Abstract: This study provides new evidence on how prenatal WIC participation influences pregnancy-related outcomes, using a large dataset of Medicaid mothers with two or more singleton births. Our analysis suggests there is negative selection by maternal unobserved factors even with a relatively homogenous sample and a rich set of observed characteristics. The conservative estimates from multiple regression which doesn’t address maternal unobserved heterogeneity already demonstrate beneficial effects on a range of outcomes. The concern of mis-specification or extrapolation in the linear model is also ruled out. Controlling for the mother fixed effects, we find more statistically significant estimates which are usually larger in size. The within-mother estimates are robust in a series of sensitivity checks especially multiple inference adjustments. Overall, we find WIC does work to improve infant health and maternal health behaviors as well as reduce usage of costly maternity care. Keywords: WIC; Food and nutrition assistance; Infant health; Maternal health behaviors; Costly maternity services; Multiple inference adjustments (search for similar items in EconPapers) Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:ehbiol:v:47:y:2022:i:c:s1570677x22000934 DOI: 10.1016/j.ehb.2022.101197 Access Statistics for this article Economics & Human Biology is currently edited by J. Komlos, Inas R Kelly and Joerg Baten More articles in Economics & Human Biology from Elsevier |
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