1. Activity Name: Women, Infants, Children (WIC) Based Prevention Programs

2. Project Leader: Robert Smith, MD, MPH; smithr3@UMDNJ.EDU

3. Other Faculty and staff:

Peter Wenger, MD; wengerpn@UMDNJ.EDU

William Halperin MD MPH DrPH; halperwe@umdnj.edu

Nisha Jani, MPH; janini@umdnj.edu

Valeria Andrews-Jacobs; jacobsva@umdnj.edu

4. Mission/Vision and Program Specifics:

Women, Infants, Children (WIC) is a feeding program sponsored by the US Department of Agriculture. The University Hospital WIC Program serves approximately one quarter of Newark's Children and expectant and new mothers by providing money to purchase food. The vision of our WIC Based Prevention Program is to append additional preventive services to the core nutritional program. These prevented services include onsite testing for anemia which is a requirement for client participation in WIC. Secondly the program will provide periodic screening for blood lead level. Despite Newark being a high risk community for lead poisoning, heretofore approximately half of the children are appropriately screened. Newark has also had low rates of childhood immunization. Our WIC program provides catch-up immunizations for children participating in the University Hospital WIC program. We are currently introducing a home visit program for the prevention of home injuries such as fire, carbon monoxide poisoning, and poisoning from prescription medicines and household products. A separate remediation program will assist families in eliminating these household hazards.

The WIC based prevention programs have been supported in part by Horizon Blue Cross-Blue Shield, the Benjamin Moore Paint Company, the New Jersey Department of Human Services, Americorps, and contributions of the Department of Preventive Medicine and Community Health located at UMDNJ-New Jersey Medical.

5. Program Specifics:

see above

6. Opportunities for Students:

Students are welcome to assist in the recording and analysis of data collected from the clinic. They may contact me at: smithr3@UMDNJ.EDU

Date revised: 3/30/05