A study conducted in rural Kenya found that cash transfers can effectively reduce infant mortality. Infants born to families receiving $1,000 showed a nearly 50% decrease in mortality compared to those without cash support. The impact of cash on health outcomes, particularly infant mortality, has been challenging to measure rigorously in the past. This study utilized randomized controlled trials to analyze the effects of cash on health, highlighting the potential of cash transfers as a life-saving intervention for families in poverty.
"This paper is really well done, and the result itself is pretty stunning," says Heath Henderson, an economist at Drake University who wasn't involved in the study. Historically, it's been "difficult to study the impacts of cash transfers on mortality with any sort of rigor," he says. "This study is different," he says, and suggests cash can help people get life-saving care.
"Infant and child mortality in rural Kenya is an order of magnitude higher than it is in the U.S.," says Edward Miguel, an economist at the University of California Berkeley and study co-author. "But it's still a relatively rare event to have a child die. Statistically speaking, that means we need a really large sample size to have precise and reliable results."
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