Los Angeles County Women, Infants and Children (LAC WIC) programs provide supplemental nutrition, health care referrals and nutrition education for low-income pregnant women or women with children under age 5 who are at nutritional risk. Although LAC WIC programs are often approached with research requests, they do not have a strategic plan to vet, manage or optimize in-house research. This project will create a strategic plan that will provide guidelines and tools to facilitate research of interest to LAC WIC leaders, participants, staff and academics.

1. DEVELOPING INFRASTRUCTURE TO INCREASE
THE VOLUME, SCOPE AND QUALITY OF
PARTNERED TRANSLATIONAL RESEARCH
BETWEEN
WIC PROGRAMS AND THE UCLA CTSI
Moira Inkelas, PhD, UCLA
Terry Silberman, DrPH, LA BioMed/SLAHP WIC
May Wang, PhD, UCLA
Shannon Whaley, PhD, PHFE WIC
CTSI CERP Learning Network
Dec 4, 2012

2. About Los Angeles County WIC
Programs
- Serve about 400,000 participants annually
(two-thirds of infants born in Los Angeles)
- Abut 98% of income-eligible families (<185%
FPL) participate
- Seven (7) WIC programs with more than 70
neighborhood centers
- Most participants visit monthly or bimonthly
- Visits involve individual and group education
in health/nutrition

3. Background
- LAC WIC programs serve low-income women,
infants and children throughout LA County
- WIC programs are often approached with
research requests by independent investigators
- There have been limited coordinated research
partnerships to date between local academic
institutions and the LAC WIC programs
- Local WIC programs do not have a strategic plan
to vet, manage, or optimize in-house research

4. Research Questions
• What research topics and methods are WIC clients
willing to participate in?
• What data collection methods and study designs are
WIC leaders willing to undertake?
• What are the key functions, in terms of direct
services, processes, and preparation of CTSI
investigators and research staff, and WIC program
leaders and staff, to work effectively with each
other?

5. Research Questions (Continued)
• What key processes need to be in place, and standardized,
to streamline partnered research?
– Examples include IRB templates, and protocols for methods
such as recruitment, data collection, and client tracking.
• What are the costs of essential infrastructure? How could
costs be captured so that the infrastructure is sustainable
and reliable for current and future partnerships?
– Examples including establishing protocols; reviewing
potential studies to determine if WIC will participate;
implementing protocols, training front-line staff on protocols
as appropriate

6. Methods
• Focus groups with WIC Participants
• Discussion with WIC Directors, lead staff
• Document process flow for research activities,
using historical and contemporary research
projects
• Prototype and refine cost estimates

7. Accomplishments
• Established relationships across institutions,
laying foundation for future collaboration
• Identified research priorities relevant to each of
the LAC WIC programs
• Documented research processes at WIC
• Initiated a strategic plan for research
infrastructure (in process)
• Identified common interests across academics,
WIC directors, staff, and participants

8. Scale and Spread
The strategic plan will provide guidelines and tools that
can be applied by each of the seven LAC WIC programs
• Establish research priorities
• Protocols for research requests
• Explicit parameters for research at WIC, use of WIC data or
contact with WIC participants
• Cost estimates
• Cost recovery tools
•

9. Still Underway…
• Complete focus groups
• Summarize findings
• Document WIC program research priorities
• Finalize research process flow
• Prototype cost estimates
• Finalize strategic plan/tools

10. What’s Next?
• Identify research priorities that are of interest
to CTSI investigators
- WIC participant retention
- Effective messaging for behavior change
- Gestational weight gain
- Childhood obesity
• Identify resources and infrastructure needed
to support research functions
• Explore development of training grant

11. Lessons Learned
• Working across institutions requires additional
time to work out details of the IRB review
process, even with new harmonization
protocols
• Infrastructure at each of the LA County WIC
programs varies significantly, but common
research protocols/guidelines/toolkit can
serve all of the programs

12. Added Value
• CERP contract has led to strengthened
relationships and collaboration between
investigators at the two largest LAC WIC
programs and UCLA
• Project has provided a platform to obtain
input on research interests from the other LAC
WIC programs