A hard pill to swallow? Parental health shocks and children's mental health

Abstract

Based on comprehensive administrative health record data from Austria, this study examines how children's mental health responds to a severe parental health shock. To account for the endogeneity of a serious parental illness, our sample is restricted to children who experience the health shock of a parent at some point in time and we exploit the timing of shocks in a dynamic DID setting. We find a positive causal effect of parental health shocks on children's mental health care utilization. Affected children have higher medical attendance for the treatment of mental illnesses, consume more psychotropic drugs, and are more likely to be hospitalized with mental and behavioral disorders. A significant increase in the utilization of antidepressants, anxiolytics, and sedatives can be observed for older children, girls and children with a white‐collar family background. Our findings have important policy implications for children's access to psychotherapies and mental health care after experiencing a traumatic household event.

The influence of parental cancer on the mental health of children and young adults: Evidence from Norwegian register data on healthcare consultations

“…On the other, the offspring and other family members may enter a period of intense grief, and the definitive loss of a parent may cause life changes with long-term health implications through complex causal chains involving, for example, education. Many investigations have indeed shown that offspring's health and wellbeing are adversely affected by parental deaths from cancer (Jessopp, Fischer and Good 2022) or a broader group of causes (Berg, Rostila and Hjern 2016;Glaser and Pruckner 2023), although there are also studies where such effects have not appeared (Pfeffer et al 2000;Stikkelbroek et al 2012).…”