WIC Participants' Perspectives of Facilitators and Barriers to Shopping With eWIC Compared With Paper Vouchers

Abstract

Objectives: (1) To describe facilitators and barriers to the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) food shopping via electronic benefits transfer (eWIC) compared with paper vouchers. (2) To explore suggestions that WIC participants had for modifying the program to enhance their overall WIC experience.

Design: Qualitative, semistructured, in-depth interviews.

Setting: WIC participants in East Tennessee.

Participants: Twenty-four primary food shoppers of WIC-participating households aged at least 18 years were recruited using a purposive sampling strategy.

Phenomenon of interest: Perceived facilitators and barriers to use of eWIC as compared with paper vouchers.

Analysis: Interview transcripts were analyzed using a grounded theory approach to identify emergent themes.

Results: Participants identified several ways eWIC has improved their food shopping experience, including ad hoc redemption of WIC benefits and a quicker, more discrete checkout. Participants' chief complaint about eWIC was transaction errors at checkout. Participants identified other barriers to shopping for WIC foods that cannot be addressed by the card alone, such as difficulty identifying WIC items in-store. Participants reported changes to their benefit tracking behaviors and provided suggestions to improve WIC further.

Conclusions and implications: The transition to eWIC was viewed favorably among WIC participants, although participants identified a need for additional support in addressing transaction errors. This finding presents an opportunity to modify messages delivered to WIC participants by WIC nutrition educators and enhance collaboration between WIC agencies, retailers, and e-commerce technology providers.

Keywords: Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children; food assistance; nutrition policy; qualitative research; technology.