Consequences of ADHD medication use for children's outcomes

Abstract

Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen:Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden.Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen.Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. www.econstor.eu The Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA) in Bonn is a local and virtual international research center and a place of communication between science, politics and business. IZA is an independent nonprofit organization supported by Deutsche Post Foundation. The center is associated with the University of Bonn and offers a stimulating research environment through its international network, workshops and conferences, data service, project support, research visits and doctoral program. IZA engages in (i) original and internationally competitive research in all fields of labor economics, (ii) development of policy concepts, and (iii) dissemination of research results and concepts to the interested public. Terms of use: Documents in D I S C U S S I O N P A P E R S E R I E SIZA Discussion Papers often represent preliminary work and are circulated to encourage discussion. Citation of such a paper should account for its provisional character. A revised version may be available directly from the author.IZA Discussion Paper No. 8208 May 2014 ABSTRACT Consequences of ADHD Medication Use forChildren's Outcomes * This paper estimates effects of early ADHD medication use on key human capital outcomes for children diagnosed with ADHD while using rarely available register based data on diagnoses and prescription drug purchases. Our main identification strategy exploits plausible exogenous assignment of children to hospitals with specialist physicians, while our analysis of health outcomes also allows for an individual level panel data strategy. We find that the behavior of specialist physicians varies considerably across hospitals and that the prescribing behavior does affect the probability that a given child is treated. Results show that children diagnosed with ADHD in pharmacological treatment have fewer hospital contacts if treated and that treatment to some extent protects against criminal behavior.JEL Classification: I11, I12

Sex, drugs, and ADHD: The effects of ADHD pharmacological treatment on teens' risky behaviors

“…Currie et al (2014) find that taking stimulant medication is associated with a deterioration in academic outcomes and relationship with parents. In contrast, Dalsgaard et al (2014) show that treatment is associated with fewer hospital visits and a reduction in the number of interactions with the police.…”

“…Using data from the 1994-2008 National Longitudinal Survey of Canadian Youth, they find that stimulant medication treatment is associated with a decrease in academic outcomes such as grade repetition, math scores, and the probability of having any post-secondary education for girls, a deterioration in relationship with parents, and an increase in the probability of depression. Dalsgaard et al (2014) exploit the idiosyncratic differences in physician preferences to prescribe pharmacological treatment to analyze the effects of ADHD treatment on hospital visits and criminal behavior. Consistent with earlier research (e.g.…”

“…This implies that two children with identical symptoms and characteristics have a different probability of being diagnosed and treated with medications depending on their physician's preferences. Using Danish registers data and provider probability to prescribe as an instrument, Dalsgaard et al (2014) find that treatment receipt is associated with fewer hospital visits and fewer police interactions.…”

“…Its variants were employed in the work by Dalsgaard et al (2014) and Duggan (2005). Our data allow us to construct a more precise measure of provider preferences and test whether there is evidence of the instrument being correlated with provider quality and whether there is evidence of provider shopping.…”

“…Finally, we provide innovative supporting evidence in favor of using provider propensity to prescribe as an instrument for medical treatment. Variants of this instrument were employed in the work by Dalsgaard et al (2014) and Duggan (2005), as discussed in Section 5.…”