Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) and its Comorbid Mental Disorders: An Evaluation of their Labor Market Outcomes.

DISCUSSION AND LIMITATIONS: In contrast to existing evidence, we find that ADHD is not more serious than learning disabilities or depression. Although the magnitude of each employment gap is not substantial, the fact that these are comorbid disorders indicates that their joint occurrence could be detrimental for employment. Females and African Americans with learning disabilities could face more adverse labor market outcomes. Even though our results are robust to a more exogenous measure of depression, the potential endogeneity of the diagnosis of ADHD or anxiety could still bias the estimates. However, baseline results are also robust when individuals with an age of diagnosis equal to the year of the interview are dropped from the estimations. IMPLICATIONS FOR HEALTH POLICY AND FOR FUTURE RESEARCH: The increasing number of Supplemental Security Income beneficiaries with ADHD is in line with the observed tendency to screen for ADHD more frequently than for other comorbid disorders, and with the evidence of ADHD overdiagnosis. Since our study shows that other disorders are equally or potentially more disabling than ADHD in terms of labor market outcomes, mental health policies should be reoriented to prevent policies targeting ADHD from crowding out those for other mental disorders. It would be interesting to verify our findings using a more recent cohort with a higher rate of ADHD diagnosis. Since we show that there are unexplained gender and race differences that per...
Source: Journal of Mental Health Policy and Economics - Category: Psychiatry Tags: J Ment Health Policy Econ Source Type: research