Government Assistance Protects Low-Income Families from Eviction.
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ABSTRACT:
SUBMITTER: Lundberg I
PROVIDER: S-EPMC8011571 | biostudies-literature | 2021
REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature
Publications
Government Assistance Protects Low-Income Families from Eviction.
Lundberg Ian I Gold Sarah L SL Donnelly Louis L Brooks-Gunn Jeanne J McLanahan Sara S SS
Journal of policy analysis and management : [the journal of the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management] 20200617 1
A lack of affordable housing is a pressing issue for many low-income American families and can lead to eviction from their homes. Housing assistance programs to address this problem include public housing and other assistance, including vouchers, through which a government agency offsets the cost of private market housing. This paper assesses whether the receipt of either category of assistance reduces the probability that a family will be evicted from their home in the subsequent six years. Bec ...[more]
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Project description:BackgroundAs a key aspect of poverty, material hardship describes day-to-day struggles in affording necessities. In explorations of policy initiatives that mitigate material hardship, evidence suggests direct income support can be effective in alleviating hardship. However, research investigating the long-term effects of income supports is limited, and it remains uncertain as to how benefit receipt may mitigate material hardship for families with children across time.MethodsTo explore the associations between income assistance and material hardship longitudinally, we utilised data from four waves of the Growing Up in New Zealand birth-cohort study (n = 5964), where family experiences were tracked between birth and adolescence. The variables of interest included mother-reported receipt of income benefits and material hardship from when the children were aged 9-months, 54-months, 8-years, and 12-years. Multilevel logistic regression analysis was employed to examine the associations between benefit receipt and material hardship in the short- and long-term. Interaction terms between benefit receipt and time were incorporated in the modelling to determine whether receiving benefits corresponded with significant changes in the likelihood of experiencing material hardship at specific time points.ResultsThe key results suggest that benefit receipt in early childhood reduced the likelihood of experiencing material hardship at subsequent time points at least until adolescence, when controlling for key sociodemographic characteristics.ConclusionThese findings provide insight into the associations between early childhood income supports and reductions in the likelihood of experiencing material hardship in the long-term, to emphasise the potential for such interventions to have longstanding effects. By elucidating the associations between benefit receipt and subsequent material hardship, this research gives direction for policy interventions and timely support for families.
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Project description:We sought to examine whether and how landlord-related forced moves (inclusive of, but not limited to, legal eviction) were associated with emergency department (ED) use over time. We used survey data collected between 2017 and 2019 among 283 low-income participants in New Haven, CT to examine whether experiencing a legal eviction or other landlord-related forced move (T0) was associated with increased odds of ED use 6 months (T1) and 12 months (T2) later. We conducted bootstrapped mediation analyses to examine indirect effects of post-traumatic stress symptoms. One-fifth of participants (n = 61) reported a recent forced move at baseline (T0); half of these were legally evicted. Landlord-related forced moves were associated with ED use at T1 (AOR = 2.06, 95 % CI: 1.04-4.06) and T2 (AOR = 3.05, 95 % CI: 1.59-5.88). After adjustment for sociodemographic factors and other health-related confounders, legal eviction was not significantly associated with ED use at T1 (AOR = 1.61, 95 % CI: 0.68-3.81), but was significantly associated with ED use at T2 (AOR = 3.58, 95 % CI: 1.58-8.10). Post-traumatic stress symptoms accounted for 15.1% of forced moves' association with ED use (p <.05). Landlord-related forced moves are positively associated with subsequent ED use, and post-traumatic stress symptoms are one factor that may help explain this association. Structural interventions that promote housing stability are needed to advance health equity, and they may also help to reduce preventable ED use. Such interventions are imperative in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, which has strained health system capacity and exacerbated housing instability for many low-income renters. Results underscore the relevance of trauma-informed care and integrated care management to clinical practice in emergency settings.
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Project description:ObjectiveUnintentional injuries are the leading cause of death for children in the United States (U.S.), and young children ages (1-4) are particularly at risk. Supervising for Home Safety (SHS) is a Canadian intervention that has been shown to reduce children's injury risk by increasing caregiver supervision. Given that low-income children are at greatest risk for injury, this study describes a process of modifying the SHS program to be culturally appropriate for low-income families of U.S. preschool children.MethodsTwo rounds of focus groups were completed; feedback from the first round of focus groups was used to modify program materials prior to the second round.ResultsCaregivers gleaned important take-away messages from both the original and modified materials, including the idea that injuries can happen quickly and that caregivers can prevent injuries. Modifications to the intervention included increased diversity in the families represented in the videos as well as inclusion of U.S. injury statistics. Caregivers in both rounds of focus groups noted that the program messages were relatable and realistic and that the materials were impactful in increasing their awareness of children's injury risk.ConclusionWe were able to successfully modify the SHS program to be appropriate for low-income U.S. families while preserving the core program messages.
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Project description:BackgroundBetween 2012 and 2016, development assistance for HIV/AIDS decreased by 20·0%; domestic financing is therefore critical to sustaining the response to HIV/AIDS. To understand whether domestic resources could fill the financing gaps created by declines in development assistance, we aimed to track spending on HIV/AIDS and estimated the potential for governments to devote additional domestic funds to HIV/AIDS.MethodsWe extracted 8589 datapoints reporting spending on HIV/AIDS. We used spatiotemporal Gaussian process regression to estimate a complete time series of spending by domestic sources (government, prepaid private, and out-of-pocket) and spending category (prevention, and care and treatment) from 2000 to 2016 for 137 low-income and middle-income countries (LMICs). Development assistance data for HIV/AIDS were from Financing Global Health 2018, and HIV/AIDS prevalence, incidence, and mortality were from the Global Burden of Disease study 2017. We used stochastic frontier analysis to estimate potential additional government spending on HIV/AIDS, which was conditional on the current government health budget and other finance, economic, and contextual factors associated with HIV/AIDS spending. All spending estimates were reported in 2018 US$.FindingsBetween 2000 and 2016, total spending on HIV/AIDS in LMICs increased from $4·0 billion (95% uncertainty interval 2·9-6·0) to $19·9 billion (15·8-26·3), spending on HIV/AIDS prevention increased from $596 million (258 million to 1·3 billion) to $3·0 billion (1·5-5·8), and spending on HIV/AIDS care and treatment increased from $1·1 billion (458·1 million to 2·2 billion) to $7·2 billion (4·3-11·8). Over this time period, the share of resources sourced from development assistance increased from 33·2% (21·3-45·0) to 46·0% (34·2-57·0). Care and treatment spending per year on antiretroviral therapy varied across countries, with an IQR of $284-2915. An additional $12·1 billion (8·4-17·5) globally could be mobilised by governments of LMICs to finance the response to HIV/AIDS. Most of these potential resources are concentrated in ten middle-income countries (Argentina, China, Colombia, India, Indonesia, Mexico, Nigeria, Russia, South Africa, and Vietnam).InterpretationSome governments could mobilise more domestic resources to fight HIV/AIDS, which could free up additional development assistance for many countries without this ability, including many low-income, high-prevalence countries. However, a large gap exists between available financing and the funding needed to achieve global HIV/AIDS goals, and sustained and coordinated effort across international and domestic development partners is required to end AIDS by 2030.FundingThe Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
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