The Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) nutrition program, which provides food for pregnant women, breastfeeding mothers, and children up to age 5, has been shown to provide "wide-ranging benefits," including longer, safer pregnancies and fewer premature births and infant deaths, as well as improved maternal health and school performance.
But it's been a tough sell for Native American women, who make up the lion's share of the program's participants: Only 51% of them did in 2021.
That's why the Indigenous Food and Agriculture Initiative, the Center for Nutrition and Health Impact, and UnidosUSthe nation's largest Hispanic civil rights and advocacy organizationare announcing $14.8 million in funding for outreach to help Native American women and their children eat better, NPR reports.
The funding will help state and local agencies, including Indian Tribal Organizations, "develop, implement, and evaluate innovative outreach strategies to increase WIC awareness, participation, and benefit redemption, and reduce disparities in program delivery," the USDA says in a press release.
Native American women in particular "face many barriers to accessing healthy foods, including stigma, discrimination, and lack of access to culturally and linguistically appropriate foods," the press release says.
For example, Native American women in Alaska don'
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