Key Points
The relationship between brain development and low-income is relatively well-established, but the role of anti-poverty policies in this relationship is not...
If one were living in a low-income household in a state with a higher cost of living, and received generous cash benefits, their hippocampal volumes were, on average, 34% larger than those who lived in low-income households in states with a relatively higher cost of living and lower cash benefits...
Similarly, the authors found that for children growing up in low-income households, more generous cash benefits are associated with greater reductions in internalising problems.. So the study found that poverty could shape biological properties, like brain development, and highlighted the role governments and public policy could have in ameliorating the biological effects of poverty...
However, Dr. Weissman said that their findings supported something intuitive that could be generalisable, that policies or economic conditions that have a direct influence on a familys financial resources matter for childrens brain development...
But according to Dr. Weissman, its youth participants have returned every year, allowing the researchers to study how policy changes that have occurred since these data were collected has influenced the trajectories of the youths mental health and brain development...
