Lyk-Jensen Stéphanie Vincent, Weatherall Cecilie Dohlmann, Jepsen Peter Winning
The Danish National Centre for Social Research (SFI), Herluf Trolles Gade 11, DK-1052 Copenhagen K, Denmark.
Kraks Fond Institute for Urban Economic Research, Frederiksholms Kanal 30, DK-1220 Copenhagen K, Denmark(1); The Danish National Centre for Social Research (SFI), Herluf Trolles Gade 11, DK-1052 Copenhagen K, Denmark(2).
Econ Hum Biol. 2016 Dec;23:193-208. doi: 10.1016/j.ehb.2016.09.005. Epub 2016 Sep 30.
Public concern about soldiers' mental health has increased over the last decade. Yet the large literature on the mental health problems of returning soldiers relies primarily on self-reported measures that may suffer from non-response bias, usually refers to older conflicts, and focuses mainly on specific diagnoses such as PTSD. Another challenge is that the differences between soldiers and non-soldiers are not necessarily causal, instead possibly reflecting an underlying propensity towards active military service. Using the objective measures of hospitalizations and the purchase of mental health medication, this paper is the first to investigate the effect of recent military deployments on a broader measure of mental health, for a full population of Danish soldiers and a comparison group of eligible men. We exploit a panel of Danish health administrative records and use propensity score matching process, using unique observables such as ability tests. Matching is helpful in both reducing the selection bias from observables and determining pre- and post-deployment period for the comparison group. Then, we estimate the effect of deployment in a difference-in-differences setting, controlling for time trends and other omitted variables affecting both groups. Overall, we find a significant and long-lasting adverse effect of military deployment on soldiers' mental health, regardless of the comparison groups and underlying assumptions.
在过去十年中，公众对士兵心理健康的关注度有所提高。然而，关于退伍军人心理健康问题的大量文献主要依赖自我报告的测量方法，这些方法可能存在无应答偏差，通常涉及较早的冲突，并且主要关注诸如创伤后应激障碍等特定诊断。另一个挑战是，士兵与非士兵之间的差异不一定是因果关系，相反，可能反映了潜在的服现役倾向。本文利用住院治疗和购买精神健康药物的客观测量方法，首次对丹麦全体士兵和符合条件的男性对照组进行研究，以探讨近期军事部署对更广泛的心理健康指标的影响。我们利用一组丹麦健康行政记录，并使用倾向得分匹配程序，采用能力测试等独特的可观察变量。匹配有助于减少可观察变量带来的选择偏差，并为对照组确定部署前和部署后的时期。然后，我们在双重差分模型中估计部署的影响，同时控制时间趋势和影响两组的其他遗漏变量。总体而言，无论对照组和潜在假设如何，我们都发现军事部署对士兵心理健康有显著且持久的不利影响。
