This TED Talk features pediatrician and social entrepreneur Lucy Marcell, recorded live at TED 2018.

How many of you have had your doctor ask you about sex? Your mental health, alcohol use. These questions are almost universal, but how many of you have had your doctor ask you about money?

Most of us haven't.

But that is strange because compared to most high-income countries,

child poverty is an epidemic in the United States.

It creates conditions that may elevate stress hormone levels

and impair brain development.

Poor children in the U.S. are one and a half times more likely to die

and twice as likely to be hospitalized as their middle-class counterparts.

So, my colleague, Dr. Michael Hull, and I started asking moms about money.

We knew we needed to reimagine what a doctor's visit looks like

to get kids out of poverty and to give them a fair shot at a healthy life.

Our questions led to a surprising solution, tax credits.

It turns out the earned income tax credit, or EITC,

is the best poverty prescription we have in the US.

The average mom gets $2,000 to $3,000 a year from it.

When families get it, moms and babies are healthier.

Fewer depressed moms, babies weighing more at birth.

But one out of five families who could get it doesn't,

and most who do lose hundreds of dollars to the for-profit tax preparation industry.

One day, a mom asked us why we couldn't do her taxes while she waited for the doctor.

We all know that purgatory. Why not make good use of that time?

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