A conditional cash transfer program in New York City had a positive impact on patients’ perceptions of their health as well as their level of hope partly through improvements in financial well-being, according to an international team of researchers. Family Rewards, the first conditional cash transfer program for low-income families in the United States, also had small but meaningful effects on the use of preventive health services, especially dental care.

To be eligible for the three-year program, families had to meet several conditions, including school attendance, preventive healthcare use, and employment. The study involved about 4,800 low-income families from six of New York City’s most deprived communities in the Bronx, Brooklyn, and Manhattan. Sponsored by the New York City Mayor’s Office and evaluated by the MDRC nonprofit research group, 2,400 families in the program earned an average cash amount of $8,674 per household from 2007 to 2010. 

Compared to control groups that did not receive cash transfers, these families had better access to their personal healthcare providers (an increase of 4%) and dental checkups (up to 15%). The program also led to modest but significant improvements in parental level of hope and well-being. Plus, participation in the program was associated with an increased probability of having had at least two dental checkups in the past year: by 13% in adults and by almost 15% in children 42 months after the program started.....

.....Conditional cash transfer programs have been proven effective in reducing health inequalities in Latin America and are becoming a prevalent policy for improving the education and health outcomes of poor children in developing countries since their introduction in Mexico and Brazil in 1997.....

.....New York City’s Center for Economic Opportunity, now NYC Opportunity, created Family Rewards in partnership with MDRC and Seedco. Privately funded, it distributed $20.6 million to participating families over its three years of operation. It was inspired by other conditional cash transfer programs that have been implemented with the support of the World Bank and other international financial institutions in many countries, particularly in Southeast Asia and Latin America. 

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