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 traumatising events related to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.