TABLE 2.

Summary of impacts of cash transfers on child nutritional status, and on immediate determinants and underlying determinants of child nutritional status

	Positive	Mixed	None	Knowledge gap
Impact on outcome
Child nutritional status		✔****		Pathways of impact or non-impact are unclear
Impact on immediate determinants
Child dietary intake			✔*	Only a few studies look specifically at children’s dietary intake, as most studies assess the household-level changes
Health status		✔***		Pathways of impact or non-impact are unclear
Impact on underlying determinants
1) Food security
Household consumption	✔**			Most of the evidence at household level, rather than individual level
Household diet diversity	✔**			Most of the evidence at household level, rather than individual level
Household food security	✔**			Most of the evidence at household level, rather than individual level
2) Healthcare
Preventive care visits	✔a**			Evidence is concentrated in programmes with health conditions
Water, sanitation and hygiene			✔*	Positive evidence, but only limited number of studies available
Caregiver physical health	✔a**			Evidence concentrated on antenatal care
3) Care practices
Feeding practices			✔*	Not enough evidence and no consensus on measurement of indicators
Psychosocial care			✔*	Not enough evidence to draw conclusions
Caregiver empowerment	✔b***	✔c***		Qualitative evidence points to positive impacts, while quantitative evidence shows a mixed picture. No consensus on measurement of empowerment
Intimate partner violence			✔*	Lack of impact studies, only 4 so far.
Caregiver stress/ mental health			✔*	Subjective scales used, but lack of evidence with stress-related biomarkers

Notes:

^****> 20 studies,

^***11–20 studies,

^**6–10 studies and

^*1–5 studies

^aPositive impacts largely driven by CCTs with conditions on health visits

^bBased on qualitative evidence

^cBased on quantitative evidence