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Antidepressant Use Among Children
Linking individuals across administrative registers, we investigate impacts of antidepressant treatment among Danish children who have been referred to a child psychiatrist. Leveraging conditional random assignment of patients to psychiatrists with different prescribing tendencies, we find that treatment increases school test scores. These impacts are larger among children of mothers who have not attended college (low SES), and yet this group is less likely to be treated. Using the marginal treatment effects framework, we argue that children in Denmark and, in particular, low-SES children are being under-prescribed. This is relevant to a continuing controversy over prescribing antidepressants to children precipitated by an FDA warning in 2004 that highlighted suicidal ideation as a possible side effect. We find no evidence of this, rather, we identify a decline in attempted suicides and self-harm following antidepressant treatment. Tracking our school-age cohorts over time, we find that antidepressant treatment in childhood results in increases in educational attainment, employment and earnings in adulthood.
Speaker:
Professor Sonia Bhalotra is Professor of Economics at the University of Warwick, UK. She obtained an MPhil and DPhil from Oxford and a BSc Hons from Delhi. Her research has made contributions in the areas of health, gender and political economy. She is currently Principal Investigator on an Advanced Grant from the European Research Council 2021-2026, Co-Investigator ESRC Research Centre on Micro-Social Change at ISER Essex 2019-2024, Co-Investigator ESRC Project on Human Rights, Big Data and Technology at the Human Rights Centre Essex 2015-2021 and Co-Investigator on a CEDIL and NIH funded project 2020-2025. She is Fellow of the International Economic Association (2021-), Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences (2019-) and of the Centre for Economic Policy Research CEPR London (2019-).