Local exposure to school shootings and youth antidepressant use

Abstract

While over 240,000 American students experienced a school shooting in the last two decades, little is known about the impacts of these events on the mental health of surviving youth. Using large-scale prescription data from 2006 to 2015, we examine the effects of 44 school shootings on youth antidepressant use. Our empirical strategy compares the number of antidepressant prescriptions written by providers practicing 0 to 5 miles from a school that experienced a shooting (treatment areas) to the number of prescriptions written by providers practicing 10 to 15 miles away (reference areas), both before and after the shooting. We include month-by-year and school-by-area fixed effects in all specifications, thereby controlling for overall trends in antidepressant use and all time-invariant differences across locations. We find that local exposure to fatal school shootings increases youth antidepressant use by 21.4% in the following 2 y. These effects are smaller in areas with a higher density of mental health providers who focus on behavioral, rather than pharmacological, interventions.

Association of Neighborhood Gun Violence With Mental Health–Related Pediatric Emergency Department Utilization

“…Prior studies have found that children with self-reported neighborhood gun violence exposure have increased rates of mental health diagnoses, including anxiety, depression, and posttraumatic stress disorder, and mental health symptoms, including withdrawn behavior, irritability, and disruptive behaviors in school . A recent study found an increase in children’s self-reported anxiety and depression symptoms in the 12 months following gun homicides occurring within a mile of their home or school, while another study found an increase in youth antidepressant use in the 2 years after exposure to a school shooting …”

Coming together in a digital age: Community twitter responses in the wake of a campus shooting

“…Closer proximity to the shooting was associated with greater post-traumatic stress symptomology, depression, anxiety, anger, and disconnection in students, faculty, and staff [17][18][19]; this phenomenon was explained by the occurrence of specific thinking styles-negative cognitions and problematic patterns of rumination-following campus shootings [18,19]. In addition, a study of 44 shootings found that students exposed to school shooting fatalities had increased and persistent antidepressant use within two years of the shooting event [20]. Some survivors experience post-traumatic growth after campus shootings.…”

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“…In the past, events such as 9/11 ( Laugharne et al, 2007 ; Lowell et al, 2018 ; Neria et al, 2011 ; Yehuda, 2002 ), school shootings ( Rossin-Slater et al, 2020 ), or natural disasters such as earthquakes ( Garfin et al, 2014 ) or hurricanes ( Ironson et al, 1997 ) have caused surges in mental health problems. The Great Recession in 2007-2009 lead to an increase in mental health issues ( Margerison-Zilko et al, 2016 ).…”