Data-Sharing to Increase Young Mothers’ Benefits Enrollment in Central California

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A shot of a sloping hill covered in buildings and trees.

Data-Sharing to Increase Young Mothers’ Benefits Enrollment in Central California

By Anna Banchik, Renata Bartlett, Nolan Green, Dorin Horsfall, Lee Howard, and Kash Sridhar

Thousands of young mothers in California’s Central Valley are missing out on nutrition benefits for which they are eligible. This project recommends that the California Department of Health Care Services integrate federal and state nutrition benefits enrollment information directly into the case management systems used by state managed care providers’ clinics to provide benefits assistance to young mothers. Right now, there are several different available benefits programs, all with their own data systems; these include the federal nutrition program “WIC,” California’s food assistance program “CalFresh,” and California’s Medicaid program “Medi-Cal.” Displaying up-to-date enrollment information for these programs in the same place would allow clinics to more efficiently connect Central Valley mothers to benefits.

This project was completed as part of the 2026 Tech Executive Leadership Initiative, a partnership between the Aspen Institute’s Policy Academy and the Tech Talent Project.

See the Project