How direct cash assistance aids cancer patients from low-income households
A new study by Penn’s School of Social Policy & Practice examines the potential of a joint program between Bradley Cooper’s One Family Foundation and the Independence Blue Cross Foundation Institute for Health Equity on health care and economic insecurity.
A three-year randomized controlled trial by Penn’s School of Social Policy & Practice (SP2) is examining the potential of direct cash assistance for cancer patients from low-income households receiving care in Philadelphia, along with their families. The study, called the Guaranteed Income Financial Treatment Trial (G.I.F.T.T.), is made possible thanks to funding from actor Bradley Cooper’s One Family Foundation and a grant awarded through the Independence Blue Cross Foundation Institute for Health Equity.
SP2 assistant professor Meredith Doherty, and her team have undertaken recruitment of participants at two regional cancer centers: Abramson Cancer Center at Penn Medicine and the Sidney Kimmel Cancer Center at Jefferson Health. G.I.F.T.T. provides direct cash assistance for one year to cancer patients from low-income households, along with their families, and assesses the impact of this intervention on key clinical outcomes in a two-arm randomized controlled trial.
In collaboration with co-principal investigators Amy Castro and Stacia West with SP2’s Center for Guaranteed Income Research (CGIR), G.I.F.T.T. seeks to address the role of economic insecurity in health disparities. The trial was initiated by Bradley Cooper and the One Family Foundation and selected as an inaugural project by the Independence Blue Cross Foundation Institute for Health Equity.
“Cancer and the financial toll it takes on individuals and families can be insurmountable,” says SP2 dean Sara S. Bachman, who has more than three decades of experience in health policy research and program evaluation. “G.I.F.T.T. will investigate the intersection of health care and economic security, in keeping with SP2’s mission of advancing more effective and humane human services and social policy.”
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