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The EARN-Health Trial of Financial Savings and Health
Not Recruiting
Trial ID: NCT02185612
Purpose
The current literature in social epidemiology and public health suggests that low financial
savings has an unsurprising negative relationship with subjective well-being, and increases
the odds of making visits to a healthcare provider, receiving a chronic disease diagnosis,
and experiencing medical disability. Earn.org is a community-based non-profit based in San
Francisco with a mission to help low-income workers build lifelong savings habits and
financial capability. The organization is one of the largest providers of "goal-based savings
accounts" or "matched savings accounts" in the US. The investigators propose to conduct a
randomized controlled trial to determine the health effects of Earn's savings program.
Through this trial, the investigators will test three principal hypotheses: (1) Participants
in the Earn account, as compared to a control group, are hypothesized to demonstrate improved
scores on mental health scales assessing depression and anxiety.
(2) Participants in the Earn account, as compared to a control group, are hypothesized to
experience lower odds of harmful behaviors associated with stress, specifically tobacco and
alcohol abuse. The investigators hypothesize that the effect on behaviors will be of smaller
effect size, and more delayed, than the effect on mental health outcomes, judging from
similar effects observed in the micro-credit literature.
(3) The mediating variables between Earn account participation and beneficial health outcomes
will include increased optimism and internal locus of control.
Official Title
EARN-Health: A Randomized Controlled Trial of the Effects of an Incentivized Savings Program on Depression, Anxiety, Substance Abuse, and Locus of Control
Stanford Investigator(s)
Eligibility
Inclusion Criteria:
- English-speaking US residents
- ages 18 and older
- below 50% of the area median income
- have a regular Internet connection
Exclusion Criteria:
- non-English speakers
- non-US residents
- children,
- history of or current enrollment in other incentivized savings programs
Intervention(s):
behavioral: Savings program
Not Recruiting
Contact Information
Stanford University
School of Medicine
300 Pasteur Drive
Stanford,
CA
94305
Sanjay Basu
4158817030