The short-term impacts of Earned Income Tax Credit disbursement on health

Rehkopf, David H.; Strully, Kate W.; Dow, William H.

doi:10.1093/ije/dyu172

Cited by 71 publications

(81 citation statements)

References 35 publications

(41 reference statements)

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“…For example, the introduction of the earned income tax credit in states is associated with decreases in maternal smoking and decreases in low birth weight (Strully, Rehkopf, and Xuan 2010). Receiving income from tax refunds targeted at low-wage workers is associated with a number of short-term improvements in healthrelated risk factors (Rehkopf, Strully, and Dow 2014). Such studies are examples of potential importance for informing policy recommendations such as those suggested by Marmot and colleagues.…”

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confidence: 99%

The Evidence Suggests We Should Care About Social Inequalities in Health

Rehkopf

Mortensen

2015

The American Journal of Bioethics

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Despite the title of the article by Preda and Voigt (2015), our view is that the article does not present a critique of why we should care about social factors affecting health. It is also not about a field of study, or a critique of a model, or a critique of a body of research. What the authors are criticizing is a position on social inequalities in health purportedly taken in a series of commissioned reports, including several chaired by Michael Marmot. The authors summarize this position as "health equity through social change" (HESC), but this model is the authors' own construction, which limits the reach of the author's critique, particularly the aspects directed at the assumptions about justice. The authors focus primarily on critiquing two aspects of the HESC model: the normative argument for action to reduce social inequalities in health and the policy recommendations proposed to achieve this. The article touches upon numerous issues worthy of discussion, but it is impossible to exhaustively cover them all here. In this peer commentary, we describe how social determinants of health research relates to social inequalities in health research. We then discuss the role of empirical evidence, which prompts us to question the authors' conclusion regarding the evidence for both the justification for reducing social inequalities in health and the work to address social determinants of health. We also note that the authors attempt to critique the evidence for social determinants of health, but not for individual autonomous decisions to impact health, and we believe that more useful conclusions can be drawn if evidence for each is considered in a more balanced manner.Study of the social determinants of health and study of the causes of social inequalities in health are two diverse fields that are producing useful empirical work that generally has the goal of improving health. Varying differentiations of social are used throughout these fields, and in the article, and it is important to realize the function of each for addressing their critiques of these fields. First, the social can be considered, as described in this article, as "the circumstances in which people are born, grow up, live, work and age, and the systems put in place to deal with illness. These circumstances are in turn shaped by a wider set of forces: economics, social policies, and politics" (World Health Organization [WHO] 2014). It is this definition of social, the broad, that is of relevance for determining whether social inequalities are unjust. In contrast, when discussing specific definitions of the social, for example, a particular measure of socioeconomic position, the causal effects of that factor must be demonstrated through a balance of evidence in order to justify action on that factor to improve health. That is, if the broad definition is used, then it is reasonable to assume that everything has social causes, but this is not true in if the narrow definition is used. We discuss in the following both types of evidence, that which answers...

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confidence: 99%

The Evidence Suggests We Should Care About Social Inequalities in Health

Rehkopf

Mortensen

2015

The American Journal of Bioethics

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“…There is a growing body of evidence demonstrating improvements to child outcomes associated with increased family income that warrant attention from decision-makers. [56][57][58][59][60][61][62][63] One strength of this study was the use of administrative data to identify all those eligible for HBPB, including those receiving and not receiving the supplement. Combining populationbased databases on program participation with information on family risk factors and service use avoids the problems associated with reporting and recall bias.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Was stress reduced because rent could be paid on time? Research on the Earned Income Tax Credit in the United States suggests that increased income to low wage earners results in better nutritional intake for women in general, 63 decreased smoking for pregnant women, 60,62,92 and more prenatal care. Findings of increased infant birth weight associated with the Food Stamp Program also suggest that prenatal nutritional intake plays a role.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Unconditional Prenatal Income Supplement and Birth Outcomes

et al. 2016

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“…In examining income effects on health, several types of income changes have been evaluated. These include sources such as regular earnings (19), paychecks (20), tax refunds (21), gaming profit disbursements (22), cash transfers (23), inheritances (24) and lottery winnings (25). For some of these differences in k , the distinction may be subtle.…”

Section: Potential Consistency Assumption Violations In Social Epidemmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Consistency Assumption for Causal Inference in Social Epidemiology: When a Rose Is Not a Rose

2016

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The assumption that exposures as measured in observational settings have clear and specific definitions underpins epidemiologic research and allows us to use observational data to predict outcomes in interventions. This leap between exposures as measured and exposures as intervened upon is typically supported by the consistency assumption. The consistency assumption has received extensive attention in risk factor epidemiology but relatively little emphasis in social epidemiology. However, violations of the consistency assumption may be especially important to consider when understanding how social and economic exposures influence health. Efforts to clarify the definitions of our exposures, thus bolstering the consistency assumption, will help guide interventions to improve population health and reduce health disparities. This article focuses on the consistency assumption as considered within social epidemiology. We explain how this assumption is articulated in the causal inference literature and give examples of how it might be violated for three common exposure in social epidemiology research: income, education and neighborhood characteristics. We conclude that there is good reason to worry about consistency assumption violations in much of social epidemiology research. Theoretically motivated explorations of mechanisms along with empirical comparisons of research findings under alternative operationalizations of exposure can help identify consistency violations. We recommend that future social epidemiology studies be more explicit to name and discuss the consistency assumption when describing the exposure of interest, including reconciling disparate results in the literature.

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The short-term impacts of Earned Income Tax Credit disbursement on health

Abstract: The short-term impacts of EITC income receipt are not universally health promoting, but on balance there are more health benefits than detriments.

Cited by 71 publications

References 35 publications

The Evidence Suggests We Should Care About Social Inequalities in Health

The Evidence Suggests We Should Care About Social Inequalities in Health

Unconditional Prenatal Income Supplement and Birth Outcomes

The Consistency Assumption for Causal Inference in Social Epidemiology: When a Rose Is Not a Rose

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