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Consequences of the 2019 Public Charge Rule Announcement and Publication on Prenatal WIC Participation Among Immigrant Families: Evidence of Spillover Effects

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Abstract

This study analyzed the effects of the announcement and publication of the 2019 Public Charge Rule on participation of the special supplemental nutrition program for women, infants, and children (WIC) among pregnant immigrants. A difference-in-differences approach was used to analyze the changes in prenatal WIC participation before and after the 2019 Public Charge Rule announcement and publication among immigrants relative to US natives. We identified 17,623,683 live singletons born in a hospital from 2015 to 2019. Compared to US natives, the odds of prenatal WIC participation among immigrants were 11.4% lower after the 2019 Public Charge Rule announcement, and 19% lower after the final rule was published. The results of this study suggest that pregnant immigrants may decide not to participate in the WIC program due to the fear of jeopardizing their immigration status after the announcement and publication of the 2019 Public Charge Rule.

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Data Availability

The authors do not have permission to share data.

Code Availability

The STATA codes used in this study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

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Acknowledgements

The authors acknowledge National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) for providing the 2015–2019 natality file, which is the main data source for this study.

Funding

This study does not receive any funding from external organizations.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Public Affairs, Pennsylvania State University - Harrisburg, 777 West Harrisburg Pike, Middletown, PA, 17057, USA

    Sung W. Choi, Sujeong Park, Abena Duah & Mingean Park

  2. Department of Practice, Sciences, and Health Outcomes Research, University of Maryland - Baltimore, 220 Arch Street, Baltimore, MD, 21201, USA

    Kyungha Kim

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  1. Sung W. Choi
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Contributions

SC is the overall principal investigator and project director of this study and was involved in all phases of the research. SP contributed to formal analysis of this study and participated in original draft writing. AD contributed to conceptualization of this study and participated in original draft writing. KK contributed to project administration and original draft writing. MP contributed to methodology and original draft writing.

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Correspondence to Sung W. Choi.

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The authors have no relevant financial or non-financial interests to disclose.

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All procedures performed in this study involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.

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Choi, S.W., Park, S., Duah, A. et al. Consequences of the 2019 Public Charge Rule Announcement and Publication on Prenatal WIC Participation Among Immigrant Families: Evidence of Spillover Effects. J Immigrant Minority Health 25, 1229–1238 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10903-023-01523-z

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