Financial Security and Public Health: How Basic Income & Cash Transfers Can Promote Health

Abstract

Inadequate financial resources are a major driver for poor health. Financial insecurity contributes to health inequities in mutually reinforcing ways, with some effects lasting years. Fostering financial security to reduce the likelihood or magnitude of such pressures would have significant present and future health benefits. We review several models for bolstering financial security to determine which have the most significant health contributions based on current evidence and their theoretical potential. We hypothesise that basic income guarantees might have the greatest positive health impact for beneficiaries, though this is heavily contingent on programme design and how financing affects other social welfare programmes. Cash transfer programmes also contribute to financial security and promote health, with particularly strong evidence for the health benefits of conditional cash transfers, and may be more feasible programmes in some contexts.

Keywords: public health, basic income, health disparities, health equity, financial security