ArticleSocial science & medicine (1982)2020
The effect of cash transfers on mental health: Opening the black box - A study from South Africa.
Article in Social science & medicine (1982), 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 21 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
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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.
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.
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Who cites it
21 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- Do cash transfers alleviate common mental disorders in low- and middle-income countries? A systematic review and meta-analysis.PloS one · 2023Pooled it
- Unconditional cash transfers for reducing poverty and vulnerabilities: effect on use of health services and health outcomes in low- and middle-income countries.The Cochrane database of systematic reviews · 2022Pooled it
- The impact of cash incentives on mental health among adults initiating antiretroviral therapy in Tanzania.AIDS care · 2024Trial
- Barriers to care and internalized gender stigma among women in Zambia: a DHS-based analysis of psychosocial vulnerability.BMC women's health · 2025Article
- Cognitive Social Capital in Community and Mental Health of the Elderly in China: The Moderating Effect of Age, Education, and Income.Healthcare (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Article
- Annual Research Review: Cash transfer programs and young people's mental health - a review of studies in the United States.Journal of child psychology and psychiatry, and allied disciplines · 2025Review
- Implications of Cash Transfer Programs for Mental Health Promotion among Families Facing Significant Stressors: Using Ecological Systems Theory to Explain Successes of Conditional and Unconditional Programs.Behavioral sciences (Basel, Switzerland) · 2024Review
- A Microfinance Intervention With or Without Peer Support to Improve Mental Health Among Transgender and Nonbinary Adults (the Creating Access to Resources and Economic Support Study): Protocol for a Randomized Controlled Trial.JMIR research protocols · 2024Article
- Natural language processing analysis of the psychosocial stressors of mental health disorders during the pandemic.Npj mental health research · 2023Article
- The road to recovery: Financial resilience and mental health in post-apartheid South Africa.SSM - population health · 2023Article
- Back to basics: A mediation analysis approach to addressing the fundamental questions of integrated care evaluations.Health economics · 2023Article
- Child Tax Credit, Spending Patterns, and Mental Health: Mediation Analyses of Data from the U.S. Census Bureau's Household Pulse Survey during COVID-19.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2023Article
- The negative health spillover effects of universal primary education policy: Ethnographic evidence from Uganda.Global public health · 2023Article
- Accompanying your children: Living without parents at different stages of pre-adulthood and individual physical and mental health in adulthood.Frontiers in public health · 2023Article
- Potential mechanisms by which cash transfer programmes could improve the mental health and life chances of young people: A conceptual framework and lines of enquiry for research and policy.Global mental health (Cambridge, England) · 2023Article
- Adolescent Health Series: The status of adolescent mental health research, practice and policy in sub-Saharan Africa: A narrative review.Tropical medicine & international health : TM & IH · 2022Review
- Exploring the impact of a complex intervention for women with depression in contexts of adversity: A pilot feasibility study of COURRAGE-plus in South Africa.The International journal of social psychiatry · 2022Article
- Overlooked and unaddressed: A narrative review of mental health consequences of child marriages.PLOS global public health · 2022Review
- Article
- SNAP participation and the health and health care utilisation of low-income adults and children.Public health nutrition · 2021Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
4 authors.
Funding
Abstract
There is a gap in the literature in understanding how cash transfer programmes affect mental health. We aim to fill this gap by conceptualising and estimating the mediation effects of an unconditional cash transfer programme on mental health. We use a sample of 4,535 adults living below the South African poverty line in four waves (2008-2014) of the South African National Income Dynamics Study. We use information on individual exposure to South Africa's largest unconditional cash transfer programme, the Child Support Grant. Mental health is measured by the 10-item version of the Centre for Epidemiological Depression Scale. We use the product of the coefficient method for the mediation analysis in combination with instrumental variable estimation. We find that physical health and lifestyle factors mediate the relationship of the unconditional cash transfer programme, each explaining about eight percent and 16% of the total positive effect. Our findings show that individuals living in poverty make investment decisions that are positive for their mental health, which has strong implications for policy makers.
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Registered trials
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.