Mental Health Stigma ∗

Comparing self-reports to administrative data records on diagnosis and prescription drug use, we find that survey respondents under-report mental health conditions 36% of the time when asked about diagnosis and about 20 % of the time when asked about prescription drug use. Survey respondents are significantly less likely to under-report other conditions such as diabetes or hypertension. This behavior is consistent with a model in which mental health illnesses are stigmatized and agents have incentives to hide such traits from others. We show that differential under-reporting of depression is correlated with age, gender, and ethnicity and that these characteristics also predict a lower probability of mental health treatment, suggesting that stigma can play an important role in determining health-seeking behavior. ∗This research is funded by an ARC Discovery Project Grant (DP110100729). It was completed usin