IFPRI’s Applied Microeconomics & Development Seminar Series provides a forum for researchers to present top-quality applied microeconomics and development work. Seminars are held on the first and third Thursdays of each month, generally at IFPRI’s Washington DC office but periodically in country offices. Please contact Julie Lang (j.lang@cgiar.org) if you have any questions.
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October 15
Speaker: Pinar Keskin, Professor at Wellesley College
11:00-12:15pm Eastern Time
IFPRI HQ – Conference Room 12CD
Transforming Minds: The Impact of Public Mental Healthcare Provision on Education Outcomes in Brazil
We present the first causal evidence that large-scale provision of public mental health services improves educational outcomes for children. We exploit the rollout of Juvenile Psychosocial Care Centers (CAPS), which were introduced as a community-based substitute for inpatient mental healthcare, across municipalities in Brazil. Using unique nationwide data linking multiple large administrative datasets, we find that these centers substantially increased the provision of outpatient mental health services for children through the public healthcare system. Following a juvenile CAPS opening, children in treated municipalities experienced an increase in their probability of remaining enrolled in school of approximately 1.1 percentage points per year. These effects are concentrated among children from relatively more disadvantaged backgrounds, with mothers who have not completed high school and who live in lower-income municipalities. The increases in enrollment are more pronounced for boys, who tend to receive mental health services at younger ages due to the earlier onset of the mental health conditions they typically experience. Our findings indicate that providing accessible mental health services through community-based centers can significantly enhance educational outcomes for children.
