Evidence map›Paper›PMID 31566732›Full record

ArticleHealth services research2019

The short-term effects of the earned income tax credit on health care expenditures among US adults.

Rita Hamad, Matthew J Niedzwiecki

Abstract readComparative Study
In one paragraph

Article in Health services research, 2019. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 13 papers.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
13citing papers in PubMed
–field-weighted citation impact
1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

2 · The registry

The trial behind it

Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.

Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

13 citing papers in PubMed.

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  13. Racial Differences in the Association between the U.S. Earned Income Tax Credit and Birthweight.Women's health issues : official publication of the Jacobs Institute of Women's Health
    Article
4 · The record

Corrections and comments

PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

2 authors.

Rita HamadDepartment of Family & Community Medicine, Philip R. Lee Institute for Health Policy Studies, University of California San Francisco, San Francisco, California.ORCID 0000-0003-0730-4077
Matthew J NiedzwieckiMathematica Policy Research, Oakland, California.ORCID 0000-0001-9005-9054

Funding

Assessing the Impact of Educational Interventions on Reducing Disparities in Hypertension and Related BiomarkersK08HL132106 · NHLBI · UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, SAN FRANCISCO · PI HAMAD, RITA · 2016 to 2019
$668k
NHLBI NIH HHS K08 HL132106NHLBI NIH HHS K08HL132106
6 · The paper itself

Abstract

objectiveTo test the hypothesis that the earned income tax credit (EITC)-the largest US poverty alleviation program-affects short-term health care expenditures among US adults. DATA SOURCES: Adult participants in the 1997-2012 waves of the US Medical Expenditure Panel Survey (MEPS) (N = 1 282 080). STUDY

designWe conducted difference-in-differences analyses, comparing health care expenditures among EITC-eligible adults in February (immediately following EITC refund receipt) with expenditures during other months, using non-EITC-eligible individuals to difference out seasonal variation in health care expenditures. Outcomes included total out-of-pocket expenditures as well as spending on specific categories such as outpatient visits and inpatient hospitalizations. We conducted subgroup analyses to examine heterogeneity by insurance status. PRINCIPAL

findingsEITC refund receipt was not associated with short-term changes in total expenditures, nor any expenditure subcategories. Results were similar by insurance status and robust to numerous alternative specifications.

conclusionsEITC refunds are not associated with short-term changes in health care expenditures among US adults. This may be because the refund is spent on other expenses, because of income smoothing, or because of similar refund-related variation in health care expenditures among noneligible adults. Future studies should examine whether other types of income supplementation affect health care expenditures, particularly among individuals in poverty.

Indexed as

Population SurveillanceAdultFemaleHealth ExpendituresHumansIncome TaxMalePovertySocioeconomic FactorsUnited Statesdeterminants of healthobservational datapopulation healthquasi-experimentssocial determinants of healthsocioeconomic causes of health

Identifiers

PMID31566732
PMCPMC6863225

What OpenQuestion holds

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Registered trials

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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.