Hardship and Hope: The Relationship Between Unconditional Prenatal and Infant Cash Transfers, Economic Stability, and Maternal Mental Health and Well-Being.

Objectives. To examine the impact of Rx Kids-a community-wide and unconditional prenatal and infant cash transfer program in Flint, Michigan-on economic stability, maternal mental health, and well-being. Methods. Using a difference-in-differences framework, we compared outcomes for surveyed Flint mothers who gave birth before and after Rx Kids implementation to those outside the city. Results. Relative to comparisons, mothers exposed to Rx Kids saw improvements in hardship, mental health, and well-being-notably, a 4.2-percentage-point reduction in the risk of eviction (P < .05) and a 14.0-percentage-point reduction in screening positive for postpartum depression (P < .05). Program exposure was associated with increased trust in institutions and feeling loved, hopeful, respected, and valued. Conclusions. Rx Kids, the United States' first, to our knowledge, community-wide prenatal and infant cash transfer program, is associated with improved economic stability, mental health, and well-being. Rx Kids' place-based scale provides a replicable model for efficiently addressing perinatal poverty and improving health. (Am J Public Health. Published online ahead of print September 11, 2025:e1-e10. https://doi.org/10.2105/AJPH.2025.308244).

• Publication year

  2025

• Venue

  American Journal of Public Health

• Publication date

  2025-09-11

• Fields of study

  Medicine, Economics

• Identifiers
  DOI 10.2105/AJPH.2025.308244PMID 40934444PMCID PMC12614019
• External record

  Open on Semantic Scholar

• Source metadata

  Semantic Scholar, PubMed

• No claims are published for this paper.

• No concepts are published for this paper.

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