•Identify a policy that is not usually intended to be a health policy but that you think may have important health implications.
The child care credit is not discussed as a health policy but it absolutely has implications for health. In today’s economy, it is not feasible for many families to not have two working parents; and for single parent households, child care is a necessity. Child care is expensive (easily over a thousand dollars a month, more for infants and toddlers), the current child care credit of $3000/1child and $6000/2 or more is not substantial. There’s the health risk for children from overcrowded or unlicensed day cares as well as the loss of nurturing and bonding time with their parents. There is also the added stress for parents to work vs pay for child care, the loss of time with their children, and financial pressure.
•Describe why an evaluation of that policy is informative (primarily about the policy, or primarily a test of hypothesized mediators?)
An evaluation of the policy is informative in supporting an increase in the child care credit or creating policies that increase affordable child care options for working parents.
•Specify the outcomes and populations you think most affected or least affected by the policy.
Working and middle class families would be most affected by changes in the child care credit, with higher income families affected the least. Increasing the child care credit may allow more two person household incomes which would increase the overall income of a family.
•Propose a study design to evaluate the policy
A longitudinal cohort study with low income families that provided affordable child care or offset the cost of childcare compared with a control group. Different measurements of health and well being could be measured over time, in both the children and the parents.
•Describe biggest challenge to implementing and drawing inferences about the impact of the policy on health
It would be difficult to control for all other factors that influence health over that period of time. Would any health benefit of this policy be a result from the increase economic benefit or from improvement in parenting? Would this actually improve parenting? There are other many other factors that influence parenting than money.