Summary: Early intervention programs for children and their families can help prevent costly problems, such as low birth weights or deaths from vaccine-preventable diseases, and reduce the need for later, publicly financed care. Unless the value of such care is quantified, however, legislators have a hard time factoring its value into their budgetary decisions. Using a framework it developed to analyze the costs and benefits of early intervention, GAO concludes that providing pregnant women with benefits under the Special Supplemental Food Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) more than pays for itself within a year. GAO estimates that over an 18-year period, WIC benefits could help avoid more than $1 billion in federal, state, local, and private payer expenditures. On a related matter, GAO discovered that the formula used to distribute WIC funds to the states does not adequately consider the number of eligible persons in the states. As a result, some states cannot enroll all pregnant women, while others enroll infants and children considered less in need of services.
