Cash transfers have become popular for relieving poverty in the global south. Many programmes are conditional on beneficiaries complying with medical check-ups, nutritional assessments and vaccinations. Such conditions may improve the health of beneficiaries, above all the health their young children. But often public health provision is strained: might the increased attention to those getting the transfers reduce health services to non-beneficiaries, and especially those on low incomes who cannot afford private medicine?

What are the impacts of the largest and longest-lived conditional cash transfer programme in the world, Brazil's Bolsa Família (BF), on the health of non-beneficiaries living in poverty? Does the health of non-beneficiaries suffer when BF requirements come into place? Do the health requirements of BF lead to increased administrative costs for local health centres? Do they squeeze remaining resources for health care?