Economic Conditions and Children's Mental Health

Ezra Golberstein, Gilbert Gonzales and Ellen Meara

No 22459, NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc

Abstract: Research linking economic conditions and health largely ignores 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 child and adolescent mental health and use of special education services for emotional problems in the 2001-2013 National Health Interview Survey. Mental health status declines as economic conditions deteriorate, and this result is pervasive across nearly every subgroup we examine, including families least likely to experience job loss. The use of special education services for emotional problems also rises when economic conditions worsen.

JEL-codes: I1 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016-07
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-hea
Note: CH EH
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (7)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.nber.org/papers/w22459.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nbr:nberwo:22459

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
http://www.nber.org/papers/w22459

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc National Bureau of Economic Research, 1050 Massachusetts Avenue Cambridge, MA 02138, U.S.A.. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ().