This $494,251 Project Grant award from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD), under the Child Health and Human Development Extramural Research program (CFDA 93.865), will fund a multi-clinic randomized clinical trial evaluating the impact of a clinically-integrated financial coaching intervention on perinatal and postnatal parent mental health, infant birth outcomes, child developmental risk, and related measures.
The trial will be conducted in partnership with the Los Angeles County Department of Health Services network and the national non-profit organization LIFT, which specializes in financial coaching. The goal is to assess whether integrating financial coaching into prenatal and pediatric care can improve parent and child health by addressing the upstream social and economic drivers of health inequities. The 5-year study will examine the intervention's mechanisms and implementation factors to inform future clinical efforts to reduce disparities in mental health and child development.