Question

The concept of a universal basic income could be viewed as a public health issue? Explain why. How could you test whether a universal basic income has an impact on public health?

Answer 1

Answer of the 1st part of the question is-

The concept of universal basic income is that, government will pay a certain amount of money periodically(on monthly/weekly basis) to all of its citizen individually. And all the citizens will receive this payment without a means test(that means, Although a person has means to survive without government help, but according to the concept of universal basic income, govenment will pay that certain amount of money to that person also) .This amount of money provided by the government will only varry according to the age group of the citizens that means, people of same age group will get same amount of money.This concept of a universal basic income could be viewed as a public health issue because income of a person has an obvious effect on his/her health. As per the concept of universal basic income if government pay a certain amount of money to all of its citizen ,it will positively affect the health of the citizen. Because, the poor people with the help of this money can improve their lifestyle and ultimately it will lead to a better health condition. They can afford the expensive treatment of various disease and nutritional deficiencies mostly seen in child and pregnent women can be eradicated with the help of this concept.Moreover, literacy rate will increase and dropout rate from school will decrease and that will help to eradicate various diseases and help the people to lead a happy and healthy life. Besides this,a healthy ,happy and secure life will also help to eradicate various mental disorders . Not only the poor people, but the people who have means to survive without the govenment assistance, also can further improve their lifestyle with this extra amount of money they receive.And all these ultimately will lead to the formation of a healthy and happy society.

Answer of the 2nd part of the question,

Whether a universal basic income has an impact on public health can be tested by conducting various surveys and researches on the people who receive this payment and who do not get this payment. We can compare the health condition, the literacy rate, the quality of lifestyle ,children nutritional deficiency rate, percentage of people affected with various diseases etc observed in case of people who get universal basic income with the group of people who do not receive this.