Episode #49: Dr. Mona Hanna
Welcome to our latest edition of WonkCast: People Power Policy.
Debates about child and family policy often center on what service, support, or program to add, and why.
Today’s guest starts with a different question: What constraints on families can policy remove, and how can cash assistance help remove them?
Dr. Mona Hanna is the C. S. Mott Endowed Professor and Associate Dean for Public Health at Michigan State University College of Human Medicine.
Her book, What the Eyes Don’t See, chronicles the central role she played in uncovering the Flint water crisis and shaping the subsequent policy response.
That leadership experience was central to her next chapter: founding and leading Rx Kids, a community-wide prenatal and infant cash support program now scaling across Michigan and beyond.
We sat down to discuss how she sees cash assistance reducing constraints on families, why she resists the inevitable pressure to add “one more thing” to Rx Kids, and why the scale that simplicity unlocks matters for the policy future she envisions.
Whatever your policy perspective, this is essential insight into the thinking of a leading voice working to expand perinatal cash assistance.
