Financial Incentives, Health Screening, and Selection into Mental Health Care: Experimental Evidence from College Students in India

Emily Breza, Kevin Carney, Vijaya Raghavan, Kailash Rajah, Thara Rangaswamy, Gautam Rao, Frank Schilbach, Sobia Shadbar and James Stratton

No 34819, NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc

Abstract: In an RCT with college students in Chennai (N=340), we test how modest financial incentives and personalized feedback affect the uptake and targeting (by symptom severity) of free therapy. Despite 56% of students screening positive for at least mild depression or anxiety, only 3% in the control group took up therapy. A small cash incentive increased appointments by 9 percentage points (p = 0.06) on average without substantially affecting targeting. Personalized feedback and recommendations based on a mental health screening tool significantly improved targeting while keeping overall take-up largely unchanged. Combining these two treatments achieved both higher take-up and improved targeting, by increasing appointments among symptomatic individuals by 21 pp (p

JEL-codes: D03 I1 O10 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2026-02
Note: DEV EH
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