Overview
- By nine months after a district resumed in-person learning, a child’s likelihood of receiving a mental-health diagnosis was 43% lower than before reopening.
- Health-care spending tied to these conditions fell, with non-drug medical costs down 11%, psychiatric drug spending down 8%, and ADHD drug spending down 5% by nine months.
- The quasi-experimental analysis covered 185,735 privately insured children ages 5–18 across 24 California counties and 224 school districts.
- Benefits were stronger for girls, underscoring the role of school-based social environments in their wellbeing.
- Authors note the sample skews toward higher-income, commercially insured families and urge policymakers to consider mental-health trade-offs in future public-health decisions.