NIH Reporter #1R21AG095667-01A1

Neighborhood-Level Spillover Effects of Income Transfers on Health

Award to Stanford University by the National Institute on Aging for a study on the spillover effects of neighborhood-level income transfers on various health outcomes using large-scale patient and census data.

Description

This study will investigate whether changes in neighborhood-level income due to income transfers have spillover effects on health outcomes of individuals who do not receive transfers; health outcomes include cancer screening, preventive visits, hypertension, obesity, asthma, mental health, and substance use. The study will analyze changes in neighborhood income resulting from neighborhood-level earned income tax credit (EITC) distributions, leveraging exogenous changes in distributions over time to estimate spillover effects. Data from 8.2 million patients in 1,222 primary care practices across all 50 states in the U.S. will be used, linked to U.S. Census Bureau data and tax returns. The analysis will include stratification by age to understand effects across the life course. The primary methods involve staggered difference-in-differences with an event study framework, robustness checks, and heterogeneity assessments. This research aims to serve as a template for future studies on how health interventions targeting neighborhood economic conditions influence health outcomes.

View original record