Helped into Harm: Mediation of a Housing Voucher Intervention on Mental Health and Substance Use in Boys.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Interventions can have harmful effects among subgroups they intend to help. The Moving To Opportunity experiment, in which families were randomized to receive a Section 8 housing voucher, was one example. Voucher receipt generally resulted in better long-term mental health and lower substance use and risk behavior outcomes among adolescent girls, but resulted in worse outcomes among adolescent boys. Reasons for this discrepancy and the unintended harmful health effects for boys are unclear. We used mediation analysis to estimate processes through which voucher receipt was hypothesized to affect adolescent mental health and substance use.

Methods

We used longitudinal data (10-15 years) on boys enrolled in Moving To Opportunity. We estimated interventional (also kno

SUBMITTER: Rudolph KE 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8015202 | biostudies-literature | 2021 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature