Excess healthcare costs of psychological distress in young women: Evidence from linked national Medicare claims data.

ABSTRACT: The prevalence of mental health disorders in young adults is increasing, yet there is limited empirical evidence on its economic consequences. We contribute to the literature by estimating the healthcare costs of psychological distress using panel data of young women (aged 18-23 years with a 5-year follow-up) from the Australian Longitudinal Study on Women's Health and linked administrative data from Medicare Australia. Our empirical strategy is based on the classical two-part model of healthcare costs with individual specific fixed-effects. We complement our analysis with a test for selection on unobservables to address potential concerns of endogeneity. We find that young women with psychological distress have 15% higher annual healthcare costs (excluding hospital costs) than women with

SUBMITTER: Jayawardana D 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10947058 | biostudies-literature | 2023 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature