Title: The Effect of Parental Income Supplements on Child Mental and Physical Health
By Robin Nusslock, Julie and Frank Cohen Family Professor of Social Sciences, Director of Clinical Psychology, Director of Clinical Training, and IPR Fellow
Abstract: Growing up in a lower-income family predicts poorer mental and physical health across the lifespan. This talk has two primary objectives.
First, Nusslock will review leading theories describing how economic stressors “get under the skin” during development and the mechanisms through which they increase risk for illness and early mortality. Adopting a whole-person perspective, he will focus on how environmental stressors alter signaling between the brain, immune system, and cardiovascular system to heighten the risk of disease.
Second, Nusslock will examine whether large supplements to family income during critical developmental periods can help prevent mental and physical health problems. To address this question, he will describe his recently funded NIH grant, with IPR fellow Greg Miller, which leverages an innovative double-blind randomized controlled trial providing substantial income supplements to parents living in poverty for three years ($1,000/month vs. $50/month). By experimentally assessing the effects of these income supplements on families and subsequent youth development, this work examines causal pathways from family income to mental and physical health via family stress and neuroimmune mechanisms in ways not previously possible. By evaluating the longer-term effects of income supplements on children’s mental and physical health, this work can examine the policy implications for child development of unconditional cash transfers to parents and identify whom these supplements help, and how.
This event is part of the Fay Lomax Cook Winter 2026 Colloquium Series, where our researchers from around the University share their latest policy-relevant research.
Please note all colloquia this quarter will be held in-person only.