Rhode Island State Department of Health WIC CIAO Project

The Rhode Island Department of Health (RI DOH) implemented a comprehensive WIC outreach project  to increase WIC awareness, participation, and retention. Activities included training community health workers (CHWs), developing materials, redesigning web pages, a text messaging campaign, collaboration with RI Medicaid, and including WIC information and topics for ongoing communications within their partner network.   

.The project’s community advisory board developed strategies to address high priority barriers to WIC participation. These strategies make up a “blueprint” that will guide RI DOH’s next steps to improve WIC participation and retention. The “blueprint” contains lessons learned for WIC outreach that are transferable to other WIC State agencies.