Does providing low-income mothers with monthly cash payments improve their living situations and/or health outcomes of their children? Tim Bruckner, UCI professor of health, society, and behavior in public health and co-director of the Center for Population, Inequality, and Policy, has received a $433,559 grant from the National Institutes of Health to study the impact supplemental income programs have on residential moves made by families living below the poverty line and the health of their babies.

The study builds on and leverages data collected via the National Institute of Child Health and Development-funded Baby’s First Years (BFY) study initiated in 2018 to assess the impact of poverty reduction on family life and infant and toddlers’ cognitive, emotional, and brain development.

“Our work is focused on remedying large, widespread, and robust income-based disparities in child health in the U.S.," says Bruckner. "We aim to discover whether low-income parents who are partially relieved of income constraints move to childhood opportunity neighborhoods at a sensitive period of their child’s development.”

Funding for this work runs from fall 2022 through August 2024.