Mullins & Srivastava Present at American Society of Health Economists

Content

Sparshi Srivatava, PhD candidate resource economics, presented research co-authored with Jamie Mullins, resource economics, at the 12th annual conference of the American Society of Health Economists. Their study finds evidence of increases in crisis conversations specifically related to depression and anxiety/stress in response to temperature increases. 

"Negative impacts of high temperature exposures on physical health are well-established, but much less is known of the effects on mental health and well-being. We used the metadata from individual client interactions over a nation-wide crisis counseling service to assess the responsiveness of demand for crisis services to local temperature conditions. As the service collects counselor feedback on each conversation, we not only assess the usage volumes, but also consider the needs of users across several dimensions of crisis type," write Srivatava and Mullins.