Socioeconomic status and access to mental health care: The case of psychiatric medications for children in Ontario Canada
利用安大略省行政数据，发现低收入儿童比高收入儿童更易被处方有危险副作用的抗精神病药和苯二氮卓类药物，而更少获得一线抗抑郁药，即使有全民医保。
We examine differences in the prescribing of psychiatric medications to lower-income and higher-income children in the Canadian province of Ontario using rich administrative data that includes diagnosis codes and physician identifiers. Our most striking finding is that conditional on diagnosis and medical history, low-income children are more likely to be prescribed antipsychotics and benzodiazepines than higher-income children who see the same doctors. These are drugs with potentially dangerous side effects that ideally should be prescribed to children only under narrowly proscribed circumstances. Lower-income children are also less likely to be prescribed SSRIs, the first-line treatment for depression and anxiety conditional on diagnosis. Hence, socioeconomic differences in the prescribing of psychotropic medications to children persist even in the context of universal public health insurance and universal drug coverage.