State mental health insurance parity laws and college educational outcomes

Keisha T Solomon; Kabir Dasgupta

doi:10.1016/j.jhealeco.2022.102675

State mental health insurance parity laws and college educational outcomes

J Health Econ. 2022 Dec:86:102675. doi: 10.1016/j.jhealeco.2022.102675. Epub 2022 Aug 27.

Authors

Keisha T Solomon¹, Kabir Dasgupta²

Affiliations

¹ Department of Health Policy and Management, Johns Hopkins School of Public Health, 624 North Broadway, Room 306, Baltimore, MD 21205, United States. Electronic address: keishasolomon@jhu.edu.
² Division of Consumer & Community Affairs of the Federal Reserve System, Board of Governors, 1850 K St NW, Washington, DC 20006, United States.

PMID: 36088863
DOI: 10.1016/j.jhealeco.2022.102675

Abstract

We examine the effect of the state-level full parity mental illness law implementation on mental illness among college-aged individuals and human capital accumulation in college. We utilize administrative data on completed suicides and grade point average (GPA) and survey data on reported mental illness days and decisions to disenroll from college between 1998 and 2008 in a difference-in-differences (DD) analysis to uncover the causal effects of state-level parity laws. We find that state-level parity law reduces youth suicide rate and propensity to report any poor mental health day, increases college GPA, and does not change the propensity to disenroll from college.

Keywords: Education; Insurance regulation; Mental health; Parity laws; Spillovers.

MeSH terms

Adolescent
Humans
Insurance Coverage
Insurance, Health
Insurance, Psychiatric
Mental Disorders*
Mental Health
Mental Health Services*
Suicide*
United States
Young Adult