THIS-WIC Telehealth Solutions: Evaluation With North Carolina WIC Clients

Tufts University

Status: Completed

Conditions: WIC; Nutrition Education; Dietary Intake; Telehealth

Treatments: Behavioral: Telehealth solution

Study type: Interventional

Funder types: Other; Other U.S. Federal agency

Identifiers

NCT05854199

STUDY00002935

Details and patient eligibility

About

With funding through the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) and Tufts University's Telehealth Intervention Strategies for WIC (THIS-WIC) project, North Carolina (NC) WIC department will be implementing new, nutrition education telehealth in NC's WIC program. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the impact of the telehealth platform. The evaluation will focus on NC WIC clients as the study population. The North Carolina WIC department would be implementing this education platform, regardless of the evaluation research. The North Carolina WIC department is responsible for implementing this new intervention, while the Tufts University research team is responsible for the evaluation of this platform through surveys and analysis of administrative data.

An online survey will be used to gauge WIC clients' satisfaction with the telehealth solution and the impact of the telehealth solution compared to usual care on breastfeed duration, dietary intake, attendance at scheduled appointments, attitudes to breastfeeding and nutrition education, and barriers encountered. Survey data will be combined with previously collected data on clients and their families from the NC Management Information Systems (MIS), and aggregate level data from the telehealth solution about utilization.

Full description

Telehealth can reduce barriers and increase access to care, and it can be applied to the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC). WIC is a federal nutrition assistance program that helps low-income women with children up to age 5. There is a large volume of research that supports remote patient monitoring, and the most benefits are found when telehealth is used for communication and counseling. The USDA awarded Tufts University a grant to test and evaluate the use of telehealth innovations in the delivery of USDA's WIC program. Tufts University then offered the USDA/Tufts Telehealth Intervention Strategies for WIC (THIS-WIC) grant opportunity to WIC state agencies across the US. THIS-WIC selected 7 WIC State Agencies to receive grants, and the NC state agency is one recipient. The THIS-WIC team at Tufts University is leading the evaluation of these telehealth solutions in collaboration with funded WIC State Agencies.

THIS-WIC aims to generate evidence from NC's telehealth solution to inform how the telehealth solution supports WIC services compared to usual in-person care. The NC telehealth platform includes a mobile-optimized website, meaning that it functions as an app without requiring the amount of memory and data that apps use. Evaluation findings will inform stakeholders about the platform's benefits and how viable it is to sustain and adapt more widely.

Enrollment: 892 patients

Sex: Female

Ages: 18+ years old

Volunteers: Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

• pregnant women
• postpartum women
• parent/guardian of a participating infant or child in the WIC program

Study participants will be clients at local WIC agency sites where either the telehealth solution is offered or where only usual care is available (control).

Exclusion criteria

Trial design

Primary purpose: Other

Allocation: Randomized

Interventional model: Parallel Assignment

Masking: None (Open label)

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892 participants in 2 patient groups

Telehealth solution

Experimental group

Description:

Telehealth solution offered

Treatment:

Behavioral: Telehealth solution

Usual care

No Intervention group

Description:

Control