Child mental health and cognitive development: evidence from the West Bank

Using data on students in grades 5 to 9 in the West Bank, we study the link between poor mental health and cognitive development. After controlling for a wide range of potential confounders in an entropy balancing approach, boys’ cognitive test scores are significantly associated with self- and parent-reported measures of mental health. Boys classified as having abnormal mental health scores lag about one grade level behind their peers. Among girls, however, the relationship is weaker and—depending on specification—insignificant. We also show that poor mental health, in turn, is linked with reporting exposure to potentially traumatizing events related to the Israeli–Palestinian conflict.