• Graduate program
  • Research
  • News
  • Events
    • Summer School
      • Climate Change
      • Gender in Society
      • Inequalities in Health and Healthcare
      • Business Data Science Summer School Program
      • Receive updates
    • Events Calendar
    • Events Archive
    • Tinbergen Institute Lectures
    • Conference: Consumer Search and Markets
    • Annual Tinbergen Institute Conference
  • Summer School
    • Climate Change
    • Gender in Society
    • Inequalities in Health and Healthcare
    • Business Data Science Summer School Program
    • Receive updates
  • Alumni
  • Magazine
Home | Events Archive | Mental Health Literacy, Beliefs and Demand for Mental Health Support among University Students
Seminar

Mental Health Literacy, Beliefs and Demand for Mental Health Support among University Students


  • Series
    PhD Lunch Seminars
  • Speaker
  • Field
    Empirical Microeconomics
  • Location
    Erasmus University Rotterdam, Polak Building 2-14
    Rotterdam
  • Date and time

    March 02, 2022
    12:00 - 12:45

This paper assesses the impact of a mental health literacy intervention on the demand for mental health support among university students. We run an incentivized survey experiment with 2,978 university students from one of the largest Dutch universities. The literacy intervention provides information on the benefits of care-seeking and its potential returns in terms of academic performance. The intervention increases the willingness-to-pay for a mental health app among male respondents, and it increases (decreases) the demand for information about coaching (psychological) services among female respondents. Increased perceived effectiveness of low-intensity interventions is likely to be the mechanism. In a follow-up survey, we find evidence that the treated female respondents have improved their mental health. Finally, a model of mental health investment decisions in the presence of (self-)image concerns rationalizes the results.