The Effect of the US Child Tax Credit Advance Payments in 2021 on Adolescent Mental Health: Changes in Depression Symptoms and Suicidality
Preventive Medicine Reports(2024)
摘要
Objective Child poverty is associated with poor adolescent mental health. Changes to the Child Tax Credit (CTC) in 2021 in the U.S. were historic and introduced a new model of distributing the credit in advance of tax filing, providing families with stable, supplemental monthly income. This policy shift offers a unique opportunity to examine the mental health effects for adolescents. Methods We use electronic health record data from a large pediatric primary care network in Columbus, Ohio, which collected adolescent depression screening scores in real time as the CTC advance payments were introduced. We utilized differences in age of eligibility for the CTC to examine the changes in the probability of depression screening outcomes (positive depression screen, any depression symptom, any suicidal ideation), for adolescents eligible for the credit (turned 18 first quarter of 2022), relative to those not eligible (turned 18 last quarter of 2021) (n = 1,423). Results We did not observe a significant association between the policy change and study outcomes in the overall sample. However, the percentage of adolescents with a positive depression screen significantly declined for Non-Hispanic Black (13.4 percentage point reduction, p = 0.01) and publicly insured (9.7 percentage point reduction, p = 0.04) adolescents. Conclusions Our findings suggest reductions in depression symptoms for subgroups of adolescents who were age-eligible for the CTC compared to their counterparts who were not eligible. The CTC advance payments were a brief experiment in universal basic income and may offer a policy solution for addressing both poverty and a growing adolescent mental health crisis.
更多查看译文
关键词
Child Tax Credit,Poverty,Adolescent,Mental Health,Depression
AI 理解论文
溯源树
样例
![](https://originalfileserver.aminer.cn/sys/aminer/pubs/mrt_preview.jpeg)
生成溯源树,研究论文发展脉络
Chat Paper
正在生成论文摘要