The association between food benefit online ordering and redemptions: evidence from the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children.

IF 3 3区医学 Q2 NUTRITION & DIETETICS

Public Health Nutrition Pub Date : 2025-08-27 DOI:10.1017/S1368980025100931

Junzhou Zhang, Chuanyi Tang, Kayoung Park, Qi Zhang

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引用次数: 0

Abstract

Objective: To examine how the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) online food benefit ordering could influence WIC benefit redemptions.

Design: A cross-sectional study. We compare the average redemption rates between online ordering early adopters and non-adopters among WIC customers before and after implementing WIC online ordering. A propensity score-weighted difference-in-difference model was used to estimate the coefficients.

Setting: The Oklahoma WIC programme and a grocery store chain in Oklahoma.

Participants: 12743 Oklahoma WIC households that had redeemed their food benefits at the grocery store chain in 2020.

Results: WIC online ordering significantly positively affected redemption rates for eight of the fifteen food categories. For example, the difference-in-difference coefficients (P-values) of these food categories were cheese or tofu (0·077, <0·01), yogurt (0·092, <0·01), whole milk (0·082, 0·022), low-fat milk (0·060, <0·01), eggs (0·049, 0·033), breakfast cereal (0·085, <0·01) and infant formula (0·073, 0·039). Two food categories with significantly negative difference-in-difference coefficients had relatively lower redemption rates overall: canned fish (Coefficient = -0·209, P < 0·01) and infant cereal (Coefficient = -0·138, P = 0·015). There were no significant changes in the redemption of fruits and vegetables (Coefficient = 0·031, P = 0·121).

Conclusion: Adopting WIC online ordering was positively associated with benefit redemption rates among most food benefit categories. Our findings provide preliminary but important evidence regarding online food benefit redemption among low-income consumers.

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食品福利在线订购和赎回之间的联系：来自妇女、婴儿和儿童特殊补充营养计划（WIC）的证据。

目的：研究WIC在线食品福利订购对WIC福利兑换的影响。设计：横断面研究。我们比较了在实施WIC在线订购之前和之后，WIC客户中在线订购早期采用率和未采用率的平均兑换率。使用倾向得分加权差分（DiD）模型来估计系数。背景：俄克拉何马州WIC项目和俄克拉何马州的一家杂货店连锁店。参与者：12743个俄克拉荷马州WIC家庭，这些家庭在2020年在杂货店连锁店兑换了食品福利。结果：WIC在线订购显著正向影响了15种食品类别中的8种的兑换率。例如，这些食品类别的DiD系数（p值）为：奶酪或豆腐（0.077,< 0.01），酸奶（0.092,< 0.01），全脂牛奶（0.082,< 0.01）。022)，低脂牛奶（0.060,< 0.01），鸡蛋（0.049,< 0.01）。033)，早餐麦片（0.085,< 0.01）和婴儿配方奶粉（0.073,0.039）。总体而言，鱼罐头（系数= -0.209,P < 0.01）和婴儿谷物（系数= -0.138,P = 0.015）两类食品的赎回率均较低。水果和蔬菜的赎回量无显著变化（系数= 0.031,P = 0.121）。结论：采用WIC在线订购与大多数食品福利类别的福利兑换率呈正相关。我们的研究结果为低收入消费者的在线食品福利兑换提供了初步但重要的证据。

本文章由计算机程序翻译，如有差异，请以英文原文为准。

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来源期刊

Public Health Nutrition 医学-公共卫生、环境卫生与职业卫生

CiteScore

6.10

自引率

6.20%

发文量

521

审稿时长

3 months

期刊介绍： Public Health Nutrition provides an international peer-reviewed forum for the publication and dissemination of research and scholarship aimed at understanding the causes of, and approaches and solutions to nutrition-related public health achievements, situations and problems around the world. The journal publishes original and commissioned articles, commentaries and discussion papers for debate. The journal is of interest to epidemiologists and health promotion specialists interested in the role of nutrition in disease prevention; academics and those involved in fieldwork and the application of research to identify practical solutions to important public health problems.