Alexander Bartik
University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, IL·Social Science
Richer people tend to be healthier, a pattern seen across countries, groups and decades. But it is unclear why.
- Fields
Social Science
Public Health & Epidemiology
- Topics
income and health
unconditional cash transfer
cash transfers
- Grants
- 1 known grant, through Apr 2028
What they work on
- Estimate how an extra $1,000 per month changes health-related behaviors and surroundings, such as nutrition, food security, exercise, substance use, sleep and neighborhood, by comparing randomized cash transfer groups.
- Measure how sustained unconditional cash transfers affect access to and use of medical care, using surveys of participants randomly assigned to $1,000 or $50 monthly payments.
- Test whether added income improves physical and mental health, using self-reports, blood pressure, height, weight and blood-spot tests for cholesterol, A1c and C-reactive protein, with follow-up after payments end.
More about the research
More money might improve health, for example by paying for medical care. Poor health might lower income by making it hard to work. Or a third factor, such as education, might drive both. Without randomly giving some people more money, it is hard to tell these apart. This project uses a randomized experiment in the United States to test whether income itself changes health, and how.
Why it matters
Policymakers debating income support programs need to know whether extra money actually improves health. By randomly assigning $1,000 monthly payments, this study could show whether income causes better physical and mental health in U.S. adults and through which routes, such as nutrition, medical care or neighborhood. The results could inform cash transfer and anti-poverty policy.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Jennifer Campbell
University at Buffalo, NY·Public Health & Epidemiology·Early-career
Test the preliminary efficacy of a diabetes-tailored conditional cash transfer, tied to biweekly nurse-led virtual education and stress-coping sessions, versus unconditional cash on blood sugar control and quality of life in a randomized trial.
Audrey Pettifor
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, NC·Public Health & Epidemiology
Test whether the longitudinal link between childhood adversity and depression differs by cash transfer exposure, using HPTN 068 trial data on 2,533 rural South African girls and Child Support Grant data from the Agincourt surveillance system.
Mara Decker
University of California-San Francisco, CA·Public Health & Epidemiology
Develop and refine Meet Me on the Pitch, a soccer-based mental health program for newcomer youth, with an enhanced referral network, using focus groups and key informant interviews with youth, coaches, and community members.
The school
University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign: 41 labs on PI Pages, $907M a year on research, 870 research doctorates a year.
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