Causal effects of mental health on food security

Helen Jensen, Brent E. Kreider, John Pepper, Oleksandr Zhylyevskyy and Kimberly A. Greder

Journal of Health Economics, 2023, vol. 92, issue C

Abstract: Although mental health conditions are known to be associated with socioeconomic hardships, their causal effects remain largely unexplored. Using a sample of low-income families in the National Health Interview Survey (NHIS), we assess causal effects of serious mental illness (SMI) and related mental health conditions on family food security. We apply partial identification methods to account for fundamental endogeneity and measurement identification problems in a unified framework. To implement these methods, we combine a proxy measure of SMI in the NHIS with an estimate of the true rate of SMI from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. We also develop an innovative approach to approximate true prevalence rates when only self-reported prevalence rates are available. Applying relatively weak monotonicity assumptions on latent food security outcomes, we find that alleviating SMI would improve the food security rate by at least 9.5 percentage points, or 15 %.

Keywords: Mental health; Food security; Treatment effect; Nonclassical measurement error; Partial identification; SNAP; NHIS (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:jhecon:v:92:y:2023:i:c:s0167629623000814

DOI: 10.1016/j.jhealeco.2023.102804

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