Improving access to evidence-based antipoverty government programs in the United States: A novel primary care initiative

The US government acknowledges the struggle of low-income, working families raising children by providing the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC), a program repeatedly shown to improve child health but largely overlooked by the pediatrics community. During the 2016 tax season, we developed a program called “StreetCred” (http://www.mystreetcred.org) to help families access the EITC while visiting their pediatricians in primary care clinics. The program’s short-term goals are 2-fold: (1) expand free tax-preparation services to other clinics and hospitals serving low-income families with children and (2) expand its services portfolio with additional asset-building tools so families might truly break the cycle of poverty. Innovative programs extending beyond the traditional boundaries of pediatric health services remain an important approach to promoting the health and development of our patients growing up poor.