Waiting for Help: Timely Access to Psychological Support for Young Adults Exposed to Parental Substance Misuse

Bastien Michel, Soeren Albeck Nielsen, Morten Hesse, Kristine Roemer Thomsen and Marianne Simonsen

Papers from arXiv.org

Abstract: Access to mental health care is often rationed through waiting lists, yet there is limited causal evidence on the consequences of delayed access. We study whether eliminating waiting time for psychological support improves outcomes for young adults who grew up with parental substance misuse. Using a randomized waitlist-controlled trial in Denmark combined with survey and administrative data, we find that immediate access leads to sizable short-run improvements in psychological health. These gains persist three to four years after randomization, even after both groups have received the intervention. By contrast, we find limited evidence of large average effects on broader health or labor market outcomes. Our results highligth the importance of treatment timing in capacity-constrained settings.

Date: 2026-04
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-hea
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://arxiv.org/pdf/2604.13545 Latest version (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:arx:papers:2604.13545

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Papers from arXiv.org
Bibliographic data for series maintained by arXiv administrators ().