PROJECT SUMMARY
Black Emerging Adults (BEA), ages 18-24, in the U.S. experience higher levels of poverty, illness, and
discrimination than White youth. These exposures to harm, coupled with the lack of supportive services to
address and mitigate poverty and structural inequities, result in health inequities. BEA experience high mental
health service needs, but much less service utilization than White youth, have higher rates of STI and less
access to family planning. Disrupting the social determinants of poverty that systematically affects BEA, can
have a transformative impact on a healthy transition into adulthood during a critical time in their development.
Guaranteed basic income (GBI) is an economic strategy that could redress financial inequities and transform
the mental and physical health outcomes of BEA, which has shown tremendous promise in adults populations
and youth in families receiving income, but little is known about how GBI program would work when cash is
transferred unconditionally and directly to Black emerging adults and what critical supports would be needed to
ensure GBI is most effective. We propose a randomized controlled crossover trial in which 300 low-income
BEA are allocated to receive a $500/month GBI either during the first twelve months of follow-up (phase I) or to
receive GBI in the second 12 months of a total of 24 months follow-up (phase II). All participants, regardless of
randomization arm, will be offered enrollment in financial capability programs -- peer learning circles and
financial coaching -- to bolster GBI effectiveness. Participants will also receive a cell phone-based real-time
monitoring and response intervention (RTMR), which will ensure that BEA with unmet health service needs
receive referrals. The RTMR system will simultaneously provide critical, time-sensitive information for
community agencies and policy makers to address documented service gaps. All components will be co-
designed and monitored by our Community Working Group, comprised of representatives from an extensive
network of partnering community agencies, city officials, and youth who have been active in the financial
capability space. Together these intervention components support BEA on the individual-level (GBI, coaching,
RTMR), interpersonal-level (peer learning circles), community-level (GBI & RTMR), and at the societal level
(policy impacts of GBI, RTMR). We will determine the impacts of GBI and GBI+multi-level supports on BEA’s
investment in their future (education, employment training), mental health (depressive symptoms and anxiety),
and unmet mental health and sexual/reproductive health service needs. We will also include a nested
qualitative component to explore mechanisms of impact on financial, mental and physical health. This study
leverages a strong multi-disciplinary community and research partnership; multilevel intervention components
that address the most urgent inequities that impact the trajectory of BEA during their transition to adulthood
and independence; and provides urgent experimental data with findings that could inform service provision and
policy to advance health equity.