883-P: Associations of State Earned Income Tax Credits with Self-Reported Health Status among U.S. Adults with Diabetes, 2000–2016

Persons with low socioeconomic status are disproportionately affected by diabetes and among people with diabetes, those with lower incomes tend to have poorer health status than those with higher incomes. Few studies have examined whether policies to improve the financial status of low-income populations can improve health outcomes among people with diabetes. Using data on state earned income tax credit (EITC) policies from the National Bureau of Economic Research and self-reported health status from the 2000-2016 Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS) , we examined the association of state EITC with poor health status among United States (US) adults with self-reported diagnosed diabetes. Poor overall health was defined as self-reported general health status of “fair” or “poor” in BRFSS. Poor mental and physical health were defined as having at least 14 self-reported days in poor mental or poor physical health in the past 30 days, respectively. State EITC was defined as the state’s EITC amount as a percentage of the federal EITC. We used weighted logistic regression to model the effect of EITC variation across states and over years and calculated the marginal effects of state EITC on health status, controlling for poverty, race, education, unemployment, state gross domestic product (GDP) , state Medicaid expansion, and state minimum wage policy. Poisson regression models were conducted as a sensitivity analysis. A 10-percentage point increase in the state EITC was associated with a 3% lower rate of poor mental health status (-2,759 per 100,000, 95% CI = -5,494, -25) . The associations of the state EITC with physical health and overall health status were not statistically significant. The results were robust to choice of model based on the sensitivity analysis. Policies that increase income retained may help to improve self-reported mental health status of US adults with diabetes.