LAUSR.org creates dashboard-style pages of related content for over 1.5 million academic articles. Sign Up to like articles & get recommendations!

How do economic downturns affect the mental health of children? Evidence from the National Health Interview Survey.

Photo from wikipedia

Research linking economic conditions and health often does not consider children's mental health problems, which are the most common and consequential health issues for children and adolescents. We examine the… Click to show full abstract

Research linking economic conditions and health often does not consider children's mental health problems, which are the most common and consequential health issues for children and adolescents. We examine the effects of unemployment rates and housing prices on well-validated child and adolescent mental health outcomes and use of special education services for emotional problems in the 2001-2013 National Health Interview Survey. We find that the effects of economic conditions on children's mental health are clinically and economically meaningful; children's mental health outcomes worsen as the economy weakens. The effects of economic conditions on child and adolescent mental health are pervasive, found in almost every subgroup that we examine. The use of special education services for emotional problems also rises when economic conditions worsen. Our analyses of possible mechanisms that link economic conditions to child mental health suggest that parental unemployment cannot fully explain the relationship between economic conditions and child mental health.

Keywords: economic conditions; interview survey; health interview; national health; health; mental health

Journal Title: Health economics
Year Published: 2019

Link to full text (if available)


Share on Social Media:                               Sign Up to like & get
recommendations!

Related content

More Information              News              Social Media              Video              Recommended



                Click one of the above tabs to view related content.