ArticleJournal of social service research2025
Impact of Alternative Income Assistance Payment Schedules on Health and Social Service Access in Canada: Evidence from an Experimental Study.
Article in Journal of social service research, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Not yet cited in PubMed.
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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.
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4 authors.
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Abstract
Despite mitigating severe impacts of poverty, synchronized, monthly government income assistance payments can negatively impact people who use drugs, including disrupting service utilization. This study evaluates whether changing payment timing and frequency impacts health and social service access. This secondary analysis of an exploratory, parallel, unblinded, randomized controlled trial assessed data collected between 2015-2019 from income assistance recipients who use drugs in British Columbia, Canada (n=194). Participants were randomly assigned for six monthly payment cycles to: (a) synchronized government schedules (control); (b) desynchronized "staggered" single monthly payments; or (c) desynchronized "split & staggered" twice-monthly payments. Generalized linear mixed models assessed utilization of, and barriers to, acute/emergency healthcare, community healthcare, psychosocial services and material/legal services. Mixed results showed increases in access to psychosocial services and material/legal services, but also increases in the barriers to community healthcare and material/legal services. Changing payment schedules may alter access to services in complex ways implicating practice, organizational and interagency adaptations for marginalized populations. Results support the importance of social service agency involvement in income assistance policy reform discussions to ensure effective service delivery. Further research should include perspectives from service providers and utilize agency administration data to better understand payment schedules and service provision dynamics.
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