Understanding Mental Health Differences Between Cisgender and Gender Minority Youth: Evidence from Within-Family Comparisons

Kitt Carpenter will discuss his recent work using data from the 2021 Canadian Census, which documentedsubstantial differences—ranging from 30 to 40 percentage points—in the prevalence of mental health conditions between cisgender youths and their gender minority counterparts. These disparities remain significant even after accounting for demographic factors, parental background, and direct sibling comparisons, indicating that unobserved family background differences cannot fully explain them. 

Christopher (‘Kitt’) Carpenter is the E. Bronson Ingram University Distinguished Professor at Vanderbilt University with tenure in both the Department of Economics and the Department of Health Policy at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine. At Vanderbilt, Carpenter holds courtesy appointments in Law; Education; the Department of Medicine, Health, and Society; and the Department of Gender & Sexuality Studies. He is also the inaugural Director of the Vanderbilt Center for Research on Inequality and Health and is Founding Director of the Vanderbilt LGBTQ+ Policy Lab. He Co-Directs the NBER Program on the Economics of Health and is a past President of the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management. Carpenter was an Editor at the Journal of Health Economics from 2017-2024 and is an Associate Editor at the American Journal of Health Economics and a member of the Editorial Board of the Journal of Policy Analysis and Management. He studies the causes and consequences of risky and preventive health behaviors, especially the role of public health policies, as well as LGBT issues in economics and demography. His research has been continuously supported by the National Institute of Health, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, and the American Cancer Society. In 2022, Carpenter was elected to the National Academy of Medicine. Carpenter earned a BA in math, economics, and public service from Albion College in Michigan in 1997 and a PhD in economics from UC Berkeley in 2002. He held positions at the University of Michigan (Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Postdoctoral Scholar in Health Policy) and the University of California at Irvine prior to joining Vanderbilt in 2013.