Understanding cash transfers and their implications for health outcomes

Webinar Overview

As cash transfer programs gain popularity in the United States, numerous studies have been launched to better understand these programs and how they impact people’s lives—including how they impact health, health care utilization, and other health-related outcomes.

Three recent randomized evaluations on the effects of unconditional cash transfers on health outcomes presented mixed results that sometimes disagreed with each other. Yet understanding ongoing and completed studies on cash transfers, and the connections between them, is key to building a nuanced understanding of the effects unconditional cash transfers can have on health. 

This webinar will bring together the researchers from these studies to understand the connections between study findings, discuss how these results shape our understanding of the impacts of cash transfer programs, and the actions policymakers can take to apply research insights to their own contexts.

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Panelists and Papers

Sumit Agarwal, Panelist
Assistant Professor at the University of Michigan

• Effect of Cash Benefits on Health Care Utilization and Health (Evaluation summary)

Lisa Gennetian, Panelist
Pritzker Professor of Early Learning Policy Studies at Duke University

• The Impact of a Poverty Reduction Intervention on Infant Brain Activity (Evaluation summary)
• Unconditional Cash Transfers and Maternal Assessments of Children's Health, Nutrition, and Sleep: A Randomized Clinical Trial (Evaluation summary)
• Unconditional Cash and Family Investments in Infants: Evidence from a Large-Scale Cash Transfer Experiment in the U.S.

Sarah Miller, Panelist
Associate Professor of Business Economics and Public Policy at the University of Michigan

• Does Income Affect Health? Evidence from a Randomized Controlled Trial of a Guaranteed Income

Kimberly Noble, Panelist
Professor of Neuroscience and Education at Columbia University

• The Impact of a Poverty Reduction Intervention on Infant Brain Activity (Evaluation summary)
• Unconditional Cash Transfers and Maternal Assessments of Children's Health, Nutrition, and Sleep: A Randomized Clinical Trial (Evaluation summary)
• Unconditional Cash and Family Investments in Infants: Evidence from a Large-Scale Cash Transfer Experiment in the U.S.