Key Takeaways
- Higher cash support slowed children’s estimated biological aging at age four.
- Children receiving more cash showed lower DunedinPACE scores overall
- The aging effect remained after sensitivity analyses addressed differential nonresponse.
- Higher cash affected children’s aging measure, but not mothers’ epigenetic measures.
Money given to a family can change much more than what appears in a household budget. But can an economic intervention leave a measurable biological signature in a young child? That question is difficult to answer because poverty is intertwined with many other aspects of life, from housing and nutrition to stress and access to care.
A randomized trial offers a way to separate the effect of additional income from those surrounding circumstances. In a study, researchers examined whether unconditional cash payments made during a child’s first four years were associated with changes in epigenetic measures linked to biological aging and cognition. The result was not a broad improvement across every measure. Instead, one aging-related indicator showed a small difference, while several other anticipated outcomes remained unsupported.
What researchers wanted to know
The study examined data from Baby’s First Years, a randomized controlled trial involving mothers with low incomes in the United States. The broader trial was designed to investigate what happens when families with young children receive unconditional cash support. For this analysis, researchers asked whether receiving a larger monthly cash gift, compared with a smaller one, affected epigenetic indicators in children and their mothers. The children were assessed at age four.
The researchers focused on two preregistered secondary outcomes:
- DunedinPACE, a DNA-methylation-based measure intended to estimate the pace of biological aging.
- Epigenetic-g, a DNA-methylation-based measure associated with general cognitive functioning.
They also examined additional epigenetic aging measures, including PhenoAge Acceleration and GrimAge Acceleration. These were included as supplemental outcomes rather than the study’s primary preregistered measures.
How the trial was conducted
Approximately 1,000 mothers were randomly assigned to receive one of two monthly cash gifts beginning around the time of their child’s birth:
- Higher-cash group: $333 per month
- Lower-cash group: $20 per month
The difference between the two payments was $313 per month. The cash was unconditional, meaning families were not required to spend it on a prescribed service or meet a behavioral condition to receive it.
For the epigenetic analysis, usable saliva DNA-methylation data were available from 735 children: 313 in the higher-cash group and 423 in the lower-cash group. Maternal analyses included 329 mothers in the higher-cash group and 448 in the lower-cash group.
The researchers estimated the effect using an intent-to-treat approach. This compares participants according to the group to which they were randomly assigned, rather than only analyzing people who complied with or used the intervention in a particular way. That design is important because random assignment helps reduce the influence of pre-existing differences between the groups when estimating the intervention’s effect.
The main finding of biological aging: a difference in DunedinPACE
The clearest result concerned children’s DunedinPACE. Children whose mothers received the higher cash gift had DunedinPACE values that were 0.17 standard deviations lower than those in the lower-cash group. In the study’s analysis, a lower DunedinPACE value indicates a slower estimated pace of biological aging. The result therefore means that the higher-cash group showed a small shift in this particular epigenetic measure in the direction the researchers had hypothesized.
The authors reported that the DunedinPACE result remained detectable in sensitivity analyses, including analyses that adjusted for differential nonresponse associated with the availability of DNA-methylation data.
However, the result needs to be interpreted precisely. DunedinPACE is an epigenetic indicator, not a direct measurement of a child’s future lifespan, disease risk, or current health. The study measured a biological-aging-related molecular index at age four. It did not establish that the children will necessarily live longer, develop fewer diseases, or experience better health as adults.
The paper also reports that an alternative calculation of Epigenetic-g produced a statistically significant negative estimate, but that result was not consistently statistically significant across sensitivity checks. The authors therefore did not interpret the findings as evidence that higher cash gifts improved children’s Epigenetic-g. This distinction matters: the trial’s strongest result was specific to DunedinPACE. It should not be broadened into a claim that unconditional cash transfers improved children’s cognition.
Other aging measures and mothers’ results
The study examined two additional measures of biological age acceleration, PhenoAge Acceleration and GrimAge Acceleration. Researchers found no evidence of differences between the higher- and lower-cash groups for these measures in children. They also found no evidence that the cash gift changed the measured epigenetic indices in mothers. Reported maternal effect sizes were small, with all effect-size d values below 0.10, and the findings remained consistent across sensitivity checks.
The absence of a detectable maternal effect is an important part of the result. The intervention was delivered to mothers, but the clearest observed epigenetic difference appeared in their children. That does not, by itself, identify the pathway through which the cash may have affected children’s biology.
What does the result establish?
The randomized design strengthens the causal interpretation of the difference in children’s DunedinPACE. Because participants were randomly assigned to receive different cash amounts, the researchers can attribute the estimated group difference to the cash-transfer intervention within the study’s design and population, rather than merely reporting an association between family income and biological aging.
The finding adds evidence that an economic intervention can produce a detectable change in an epigenetic measure during early childhood. It is especially relevant because the intervention did not consist of a targeted nutrition, medical, or psychosocial treatment. The intervention was additional unconditional income. But the evidence ceiling remains important:
- The study establishes an effect on a specific epigenetic measure, not on biological aging as a whole.
- It does not establish improved cognition. The preregistered Epigenetic-g hypothesis was unsupported.
- It does not establish improved long-term health, reduced disease, or increased lifespan.
- It does not establish the biological or behavioral mechanism responsible for the DunedinPACE difference.
- It does not show that the same effect would occur in every population, income setting, or cash-transfer program.
These boundaries are not minor qualifications. They determine what the study can legitimately contribute to debates about poverty, child development, and health.
Why the finding matters, and what remains uncertain
The significance of the result lies partly in its design. Poverty-related differences in health and development are often observed in nonrandomized studies, where many possible explanations overlap. A randomized cash intervention provides stronger evidence about whether changing one material condition, access to money, can itself affect a measurable developmental correlate.
At the same time, the observed difference was modest and limited to one epigenetic aging index. The researchers found no evidence that DunedinPACE was associated with concurrent measures of children’s brain activity, executive functioning, receptive vocabulary, BMI, or maternal reports of overall health. They also found no evidence that the cash intervention changed children’s Epigenetic-g in the hypothesized direction.
The next question is whether the epigenetic difference persists. A second is whether it eventually relates to outcomes that matter directly to people, such as physical health, cognitive development, or disease risk. The current study cannot answer either question.
That makes the result scientifically meaningful without making it a completed account of how cash support affects lifelong development. It is evidence that the effects of economic circumstances may be detectable at a molecular level in early childhood, while the consequences of that signal remain to be established.
FAQs
Q: Did the study show that cash transfers make children healthier?
A: Not directly. It found a difference in DunedinPACE, an epigenetic measure associated with biological-aging pace. The study did not establish improved long-term health or reduced disease risk.
Q: Did the cash transfers improve children’s cognition?
A: The study did not find evidence supporting its hypothesis that higher cash gifts would increase children’s Epigenetic-g, the cognition-related DNA-methylation measure.
Q: Why is the randomized design important?
A: Random assignment makes the cash-transfer groups more comparable at baseline and supports a causal interpretation of the estimated intervention effect, within the study’s population and design.
Q: What is DunedinPACE?
A: DunedinPACE is a DNA-methylation-based measure intended to estimate the pace of biological aging. It is an indicator, not a direct measurement of lifespan or a diagnosis of health.
Q: Does the result mean the effect will last into adulthood?
A: That remains unknown. The researchers identify persistence and relationships with later behavioral and health outcomes as questions for future follow-up.
References
- Raffington L, Willems YE, Sperber JF, Zarandooz S, Costanzo MA, Notterman DA, Mitchell C, Tucker-Drob EM, Duncan GJ, Fox NA, Gennetian LA. Effects of a randomized controlled trial of unconditional cash transfers on epigenetic measures of ageing and cognition in children and mothers. Nature Human Behaviour. 2026 Sep 8:1-4. DOI: 10.1038/s41562-026-02568-4. Also available on PubMed with PMID: 42711377
- Max Planck Society. (2026, September 8). Cash transfers to mothers with low income may slow biological aging in children. Official research news release. Available from: https://www.mpg.de/26960975/cash-transfers-to-mothers-with-low-income-may-slow-biological-aging-in-children
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