Community-Based Trauma Rehabilitation Therapist Allocation Ratios and Mental Health Recovery in Post-Conflict Liberia: An Instrumental-Variable Analysis of Mental Health Funding Disbursement Timing

The allocation of community-based trauma rehabilitation therapists in post-conflict Liberia has been constrained by the timing of mental health funding disbursements, yet the causal direction of the relationship between therapist density and recovery outcomes remains poorly identified. The analysis is framed as a methodological and theoretical contribution rather than an empirical estimation, because no individual-level recovery data are available. The instrument is constructed from the interaction between the timing of disbursement tranches and pre-existing administrative capacity, and the exclusion restriction is defended on the grounds that disbursement timing affects recovery only through its effect on therapist deployment. The paper also reports a descriptive analysis of a real DHS Program indicator on family planning messages at community meetings across 15 African countries between 2021 and 2025, with a mean of 29.733 and a standard deviation of 17.495, which serves as a benchmark for community-level health communication exposure. The contribution is a formal identification strategy that can be applied when individual-level recovery data become available, together with a set of testable propositions about the relationship between funding timing, therapist density and recovery.