This article highlights and summarizes a policy brief written by Marianne Bitler, professor of economics at UC Davis, about Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC). Some previous studies have found that food insecurity and food-bank utilization increased when children age out of WIC eligibility, while others have found no such effects. In a study, Bitler and colleagues explored the spillover effects of child WIC participation on other family members’ food consumption, biomarkers, and food security.

Marianne Page can count numerous accomplishments during her career as an economics professor in the College of Letters and Science at UC Davis, but none like an honor recently bestowed by a Napa Valley winemaker. Page appears on the label of The Sage, an organic red blend wine created by Kira Ballotta for her Cantadora brand that celebrates Page and two other women “doing extraordinary things in support of their communities.”

Undocumented pregnant immigrant mothers and their newborn children often experience health difficulties because of the looming threat and fear of deportation. UC Davis sociologists looked at DACA’s positive impact on birth outcomes among a portion of Mexican-immigrant women in the United States. “We found that DACA was associated with improvements in the rates of low birth weight and very low birth weight, birth weight in grams, and gestational age among infants born to Mexican-immigrant mothers," they write in a new policy brief released by the UC Davis Center for Poverty and Inequality Research.

The UC Davis Center for Poverty and Inequality Research recently received a $353,421 federal grant to launch a program to help up-and-coming poverty scholars get their careers off to a strong start. The Early Career Mentoring Institute, which will run for one week each spring of 2022, 2024 and 2026, aims to nurture a diversity of scholars studying poverty and social mobility.