Citation

Koyama Y, Fujiwara T, Isumi A, Doi S, Ochi M. J. Public Health Policy 2020; ePub(ePub): ePub.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2020, Holtzbrinck Springer Nature Publishing Group -- Palgrave-Macmillan)

DOI

10.1057/s41271-020-00254-x

PMID

33116265

Abstract

Public assistance is one option for providing a safety net to protect the health of children, but assistance may also generate feelings of shame that impact self-esteem. This study aims to elucidate the impact of public assistance on child mental health. We used cross-sectional data on 6920 first graders from the Adachi Child Health Impact of Living Difficulty (A-CHILD) study. We found children living in relative poverty had more behavioral problems, low resilience, and were likely to refuse to go to school. After propensity-score matching among low-income households, the likelihood of children refusing to go to school was larger in the families receiving assistance as compared to non-recipients (OR 4.00, 95% CI 0.85-18.84) although there were no significant differences between recipients and non-recipients in low-income households. Our study produced insufficient evidence to indicate that social assistance is associated with child mental health, resilience, or school refusal.

Language: en

Keywords

Mental health; Child poverty; Propensity-score matching; Public assistance; School refusal