Poster #38 - Evaluating the Mental Health Impact of Fare Reduction Initiatives on Low-Income Communities

• In Event: Friday Poster Reception

Abstract

Public transportation is vital for equitable urban living, particularly for low-income individuals who depend on it for daily travel. Many U.S. cities have implemented fare reduction programs to enhance equity, yet the specific impacts of these programs remain understudied. This paper evaluates the causal effect of low-income fare reduction programs on mental health outcomes, focusing specifically on low-income neighborhoods, and investigates healthcare utilization and unemployment as potential mechanisms. The empirical analysis exploits variation in the timing and location of fare reduction program adoption across cities. While treatment occurs at the city level—defined by whether a city’s primary transit agency implements a fare reduction initiative—outcomes are measured at the census tract level. This setup allows for a detailed focus on how program effects are concentrated in the lowest-income neighborhoods within cities. The main specification relies on a triple difference-in-differences (DDD) framework, complemented by an event-study analysis to explore dynamic effects. Information on fare reduction program adoption is collected from the American Public Transportation Association. Mental health outcomes and healthcare utilization indicators are drawn from the CDC’s 500 Cities and PLACES datasets, which provide tract-level estimates of behavioral health and preventive care access. Socioeconomic and demographic controls are obtained from the American Community Survey. I further apply propensity score matching based on pre-treatment tract characteristics to assess the robustness of the results and address potential baseline imbalances. The findings reveal that treated census tracts experience a 2.65% reduction in the proportion of individuals reporting poor mental health, driven by a 1.39% increase in healthcare utilization and a 12% decrease in unemployment rates in low-income areas. This paper contributes to the growing literature on transportation policy and health by providing the first tract-level, quasi-experimental evidence on the mental health impacts of low-income fare programs in the U.S. The results highlight how urban transportation policy can influence broader social determinants of health and offer a framework for evaluating equity-centered public transit interventions.

Author

• Jana Abou Hjaily, University of Pittsburgh
  Presenting Author