Published 6 August 2008, doi:10.1136/bmj.a1134
Cite this as: BMJ 2008;337:a1134

Letters

Payment to look after health

Family payments: a cautionary tale for policy makers

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

Much observational evidence shows that children in wealthier families are healthier and have improved life chances.^{1 2 3} However, a cautious approach should be taken to adopting conditional payments as a means to increase family wealth and children’s wellbeing.

Ashcroft et al (doi 10.1136/bmj.a1135) rightly call for empirical as well as moral reasoning to be considered when judging the merits of this approach. We need to pull together what we know in a context dependent way.

Firstly, we need to ask, "Will it work here?" We are used to considering whether evidence from wealthier countries will translate to low and middle income countries or whether it will transfer between different high income countries. In this case we are asked to consider whether evidence will transfer from poor to rich. To understand the impact of wealth on health we have to consider that once basic needs are met the relationship is not . . . [Full text of this article]

¹ School for Policy Studies, University of Bristol, Bristol BS8 1TZ

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