IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/aea/aejpol/v16y2024i3p257-89.html

The Effects of a Large-Scale Mental Health Reform: Evidence from Brazil

Author

Listed:
  • Mateus Dias
  • Luiz Felipe Fontes

Abstract

This paper studies the Brazilian Psychiatric Reform, which reorganized the public mental health care provision by introducing mental health centers (CAPS) as a community-based substitute for inpatient care. Our research design exploits the rollout of CAPS in a difference-in-differences framework. We show that these centers increased outpatient mental health care production and reduced psychiatric hospitalizations. These reductions were more pronounced for long-stay admissions and among patients with schizophrenia. We find that the savings implied by fewer admissions do not offset the cost of the policy. Also, the reform did not reduce mental health mortality and it increased violent crimes.

Suggested Citation

  • Mateus Dias & Luiz Felipe Fontes, 2024. "The Effects of a Large-Scale Mental Health Reform: Evidence from Brazil," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 16(3), pages 257-289, August.
    • Handle: RePEc:aea:aejpol:v:16:y:2024:i:3:p:257-89
    DOI: 10.1257/pol.20220246
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.aeaweb.org/doi/10.1257/pol.20220246
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://doi.org/10.3886/E195122V1
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.aeaweb.org/doi/10.1257/pol.20220246.appx
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.aeaweb.org/doi/10.1257/pol.20220246.ds
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to AEA members and institutional subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1257/pol.20220246?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Matías Mrejen & Rudi Rocha, 2021. "Hiring Mental Health Professionals: Evidence from a Large-Scale Primary Care Policy in Brazil," Institutional Studies 03, Instituto de Estudos para Políticas de Saúde.
    2. Mrejen, Matías & Rocha, Rudi, 2025. "Hiring mental health professionals: Evidence from a large-scale policy in Brazil," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 94(C).

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • H51 - Public Economics - - National Government Expenditures and Related Policies - - - Government Expenditures and Health
    • I12 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Health Behavior
    • I18 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Government Policy; Regulation; Public Health
    • O15 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Economic Development: Human Resources; Human Development; Income Distribution; Migration

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:aea:aejpol:v:16:y:2024:i:3:p:257-89. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Michael P. Albert (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/aeaaaea.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.