Reported mental health problems have risen dramatically among US college students over time, as has treatment for these problems. We examine the effect of state-level Medicaid expansion following the 2014 implementation of the Affordable Care Act on the diagnosis of mental health conditions, psychotropic prescription drug use, and the mental health status of a national sample of college students. We find that students from disadvantaged backgrounds are more likely to report being on public insurance after 2014 in expansion states relative to non-expansion states, while more advantaged students do not see this increase. Both diagnosis of common mental health conditions and psychotropic drug use increase following expansion for disadvantaged students relative to advantaged ones, which translates into an elimination of the pre-expansion gap in these outcomes by family background in expansion states. However, in contrast to some recent work on Medicaid expansion and mental health, we do not find that these changes are associated with improvements in self-reported mental health status. We also do not find that Medicaid expansion has affected risky health behaviors or academic outcomes.

中文翻译：

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医疗补助扩大与大学生心理健康

随着时间的推移，美国大学生报告的心理健康问题急剧增加，对这些问题的治疗也是如此。我们研究了 2014 年实施《平价医疗法案》后州级医疗补助扩展对心理健康状况诊断、精神药物处方药使用以及全国大学生样本的心理健康状况的影响。我们发现，相对于非扩张州，来自弱势背景的学生更有可能在 2014 年之后在扩张州报告有公共保险，而更有利的学生则没有看到这种增加。随着弱势学生相对于优势学生的扩张，对常见心理健康状况的诊断和精神药物使用均有所增加，这意味着在扩张状态下，家庭背景消除了这些结果中扩张前的差距。然而，与最近在医疗补助扩张和心理健康方面的一些工作相比，我们没有发现这些变化与自我报告的心理健康状况的改善有关。我们也没有发现医疗补助的扩张影响了危险的健康行为或学业成绩。