[Federal Register Volume 59, Number 75 (Tuesday, April 19, 1994)]
[Unknown Section]
[Page 0]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 94-9569]


[[Page Unknown]]

[Federal Register: April 19, 1994]


                                                    VOL. 59, NO. 75

                                            Tuesday, April 19, 1994

DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE

Food and Nutrition Service

 

National Academy of Sciences, Institute of Medicine, Food and 
Nutrition Board, Committee on Scientific Evaluation of WIC Nutrition 
Risk Criteria; Opportunity To Provide Written Comments, Public Meeting

AGENCY: Food and Nutrition Service, USDA.

ACTION: Notice.

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SUMMARY: Notice is hereby given that the National Academy of Sciences' 
(NAS) Institute of Medicine (IOM), through its Food and Nutrition Board 
(FNB), will conduct the first of two public meetings to obtain 
additional perspectives about the scientific base for the nutrition 
risk crtieria used in the Special Supplemental Food Program for Women, 
Infants, and Children (WIC). Eligibility for WIC is based in part on 
nutrition risk. Through a grant from the U.S. Department of 
Agriculture's (USDA) Food and Nutrition Service (FNS), the NAS is 
reviewing the scientific base for nutrition risk criteria used in WIC. 
At the end of the 30-month study, NAS will publish a report and provide 
copies to FNS containing its conclusions.

DATES: The public meeting will be held on Thursday, May 19, 1994, 
beginning at 8:30 a.m. Anyone wishing to reserve a place on the agenda 
at the public meeting to make a 5-minute oral presentation must submit 
a written request to speak and a copy of their remarks no later than 
Friday, May 13, 1994. Additional oral presentations may be made on the 
day of the meeting only as time permits. Such requests should be made 
at the beginning of the public meeting, no later than 9 a.m. Written 
comments without oral presentations must also be submitted by May 13. 
Presentations made at this meeting will be part of the public record, 
and the press may be present.

ADDRESSES: The public meeting will be held at the National Academy of 
Sciences, 2101 Constitution Avenue, NW., Washington, DC. Requests to 
make a 5-minute oral presentation about the scientific basis of WIC 
nutrition risk criteria at the public meeting or to submit written 
comments without an oral presentation should be sent to Robert Earl, 
Study Director, Food and Nutrition Board, Institute of Medicine (FO 
3041), National Academy of Sciences, 2101 Constitution Avenue., NW., 
Washington, DC 20418.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Robert Earl at (2020 334-1917 (phone); 
(202) 334-2316 (fascimile).

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The NAS, through IOM's FNB, formed the 
Committee on Scientific Evaluation of WIC Nutrition Risk Criteria 
(committee) in October 1993 to examine the scientific base for 
determining nutrition risk criteria used in the WIC program. The WIC 
program operates through a preventive approach to health care by 
providing supplemental foods and nutrition assessment and education to 
improve nutritional status and thus to improve pregnancy outcome and 
growth and development of infants and children (through 5 years of 
age). The program links food assistance and health programs by its goal 
of improving nutritional status through food delivery and by serving as 
a gateway to the public health system principally through Medicaid-
delivered health services for pregnant and lactating women, for 
infants, and for children. Eligibility for the WIC program is based on 
income (185 percent of poverty level); status as a pregnant or 
lactating woman, an infant, or a child; and nutritional risk.
    Nutrition risk criteria include biochemical and anthropometric 
measurements, nutritionally related medical conditions, dietary 
deficiencies that impair or endanger health, and conditions that 
predispose persons to inadequate nutrition patterns or nutritionally 
related medical conditions. The appropriateness of nutrition risk 
criteria is an issue of major interest to the WIC community and of 
great significance to the future direction of the program. The 
committee deliberations will address these issues, thereby providing a 
basis for establishing approriate guidance for nutrition risk criteria 
used to establish program eligibility.
    The committee will review all WIC nutrition risk factors currently 
covered by the program. The committee's deliberations will begin with 
those risk criteria for which there is substantial scientific 
literature and move to those for which there is little or no scientific 
literature, that are most difficult to quantify, or that are not likely 
to be affected by the supplemental food package delivered through the 
program. NAS plans to identify gaps in scientific knowledge, to examine 
specific segments of the WIC population identified to be at risk for 
each criterion, and if applicable, to report its findings regarding how 
to determine who is at risk for each criterion, including numerical 
values.
    Public meetings will solicit information from WIC program 
administrators, staff, and participants as well as from researchers in 
the fields related to the nutrition risk criteria under study. Two 
public meetings will be conducted during the course of the committee's 
work, both in 1994. This first public meeting will be held in 
Washington, DC. A second public meeting will be schedule at an upcoming 
meeting of the committee in 1994 at the NAS west-coast meeting 
facility, the Arnold and Mabel Beckman Center, Irvine, California. A 
report of the committee's findings and recommendations will be 
published by the end of the study in April 1996.

    Dated: April 15, 1994.
William E. Ludwig,
Administrator, Food and Nutrition Service, USDA.
[FR Doc. 94-9569 Filed 4-18-94; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 3410-30-M