Programs that provide affordable and stable housing may contribute to better child health and thus to fewer missed days of school. Drawing on a unique linkage of survey and administrative data, we use a quasi-experimental approach to examine the impact of rental assistance programs on missed days of school due to illness. We compare missed school days due to illness among children receiving rental assistance with those who will enter assistance within two years of their interview, the average length of waitlists for federal rental assistance. Overall, we find that children who receive rental assistance miss fewer days of school due to illness relative to those in the pseudo-waitlist group. We demonstrate that rental assistance leads to a reduction in the number of health problems among children and thus to fewer days of school missed due to illness. We find that the effect of rental assistance on missed school days is stronger for adolescents than for younger children. Additionally, race-stratified analyses reveal that rental assistance leads to fewer missed days due to illness among non-Hispanic White and Hispanic/Latino children; this effect, however, is not evident for non-Hispanic Black children, the largest racial/ethnic group receiving assistance. These findings suggest that underinvestment in affordable housing may impede socioeconomic mobility among disadvantaged non-Hispanic White and Hispanic/Latino children. In contrast, increases in rental assistance may widen racial/ethnic disparities in health among disadvantaged children, and future research should examine why this benefit is not evident for Black children.

中文翻译：

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租金援助对美国儿童健康和入学的好处。

提供负担得起且稳定的住房的计划可能有助于改善儿童健康，从而减少缺课天数。利用调查和行政数据的独特联系，我们使用准实验方法来研究租金援助计划对因病缺课的影响。我们比较了接受租赁援助的儿童和那些在接受面试后两年内获得援助的儿童因病缺课的情况，以及联邦租赁援助等候名单的平均长度。总体而言，我们发现，与伪候补名单中的孩子相比，接受租房援助的孩子因病缺课的天数更少。我们证明，租金援助可以减少儿童健康问题的数量，从而减少因病缺课的天数。我们发现，租金援助对缺课的影响对青少年来说比对年幼的孩子更大。此外，种族分层分析显示，租金援助可以减少非西班牙裔白人和西班牙裔/拉丁裔儿童因病缺勤的情况；然而，这种影响对于非西班牙裔黑人儿童（接受援助的最大种族/族裔群体）来说并不明显。这些发现表明，经济适用房投资不足可能会阻碍弱势非西班牙裔白人和西班牙裔/拉丁裔儿童的社会经济流动性。相比之下，租金援助的增加可能会扩大弱势儿童健康方面的种族/民族差异，未来的研究应该探讨为什么这种好处对黑人儿童来说并不明显。