NCT05622903

Effect of Cash Benefits on Health Care Utilization

• Status: Completed
• Phase: N/A
• Study type: Interventional
• Enrollment: 3,615 (actual)
• Sponsor: Harvard Medical School (HMS and HSDM) · Academic / Other
• Sex: All
• Age: —
• Healthy volunteers: Accepted

Summary

Using data from the Chelsea Eats program, we propose to study a randomized controlled trial in which the City of Chelsea, Massachusetts held a lottery to allocate cash benefits to its residents for ten months during the first two years of the COVID-19 pandemic. We will analyze the impact of the cash benefit on health care utilization and health.

Conditions

• Health Care Utilization

Interventions

Type	Name	Description
OTHER	Cash Benefit	Spending from the cards was not restricted to food but could be spent on anything and anywhere Visa was accepted. The debit cards were credited with the first payment on November 18th, 2020 and the second payment on December 18th, 2020. The program continued with monthly credits through August 2021.
OTHER	No Cash Benefit	No monthly cash benefit.

Timeline

• Start date: 2020-07-27
• Primary completion: 2021-12-31
• Completion: 2024-02-01
• First posted: 2022-11-21
• Last updated: 2024-07-12

Locations

1 site across 1 country: United States