TUESDAY, July 23, 2024 (HealthDay News) -- It's a simple strategy that could deliver powerful health dividends: New research shows that giving cash to poor people could help them stay out of the ER. In the study, investigators followed nearly 2,900 low-income people who applied for a lottery in the Boston area. Almost 1,750 of them got up to $400 per month from November 2020 through August 2021.
The results? Those who received money had 27% fewer visits to an emergency room than those who didn’t get the monthly payments. “We can trust the poor with money,” study co-author Dr. Sumit Agarwal , a physician at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, told the Associated Press .
“There’s this narrative out there that you give people cash and they spend it on drugs and alcohol. I think we’re one of the first studies to really rigorously and empirically show that’s not the case.” Instead, people in the study who received money used the emergency room less for medical issues related to behavioral health and substance use.
There were no significant differences between the two groups in regular doctor visits or prescriptions, though people with the added income used more outpatient specialty care. What happened? Greater financial stability seemed to lower their stress levels, which improved their general health, the researchers said. "Financial strain is associated with reduced cognitive bandwidth, more mental illness and greater use of alcohol and other substances," t.