Supporting Survivors of Public Mass Shootings

Cowan, Rebecca G.; Blum, Craig R.; Szirony, Gary M.; Cicchetti, Richard J

doi:10.5590/jsbhs.2020.14.1.12

Cited by 12 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 0 publications

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“…Anger and resentment (Kwon & Cabrera, 2019a, 2019b, a desire for revenge (Osborne & Capellan, 2017), income inequality (Cabrera & Kwon, 2018), and social disorganization conflated with poorer communities (Blum & Jaworski, 2021) are risk factors associated with the increasing trend of mass shootings (Lin et al, 2018). Individuals that suffer from serious mental illness are slightly more likely to commit gun violence, but the association is much weaker than commonly portrayed in the media (Cowan & Cole, 2020;Peterson et al, 2022;Skeem & Mulvey, 2020). Domestic violence appears to be highly correlated with mass shootings (Geller et al, 2021) if mass shootings are not limited to events that occur in a public space.…”

Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

Quantifying the risk of mass shootings at specific locations

Lei,

MacKenzie

2023

Risk Analysis

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Mass shootings are horrific events that annually take scores of innocent lives in the United States. Federal, state, and local governments as well as educational, religious, and private‐sector organizations propose and enact polices and strategies to protect people from and during active shooter situations. A probabilistic risk assessment of a mass shooting for a specific organization, jurisdiction, or location can be the first step toward evaluating the effectiveness of risk mitigation strategies and determining which strategies might be most appropriate for a location. This article proposes a novel hierarchical method to assess the probability of a mass shooting at specific locations based on available historical data. First, the method generates a probability distribution over the annual number of mass shootings in the United States. Second, the article uses this national number of mass shootings to determine the risk for each state. Third, the state risk assessment is decomposed to calculate the probability of a mass shooting in a specific location such as a school. Multiple ways to assess the risk are presented, leading to slightly different probability assessments for a location. Results indicate that annual probability of a mass shooting in the largest high school in California is on the order of , and the annual probability of a mass shooting in the largest high school in Iowa is about half as likely as in the California school.

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Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

Quantifying the risk of mass shootings at specific locations

Lei,

MacKenzie

2023

Risk Analysis

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“…Gun Violence Archive defined a mass shooting as only the numeric value of 4 or more shot or killed, not including the shooter" [5] while "media outlets, academic researchers, and law enforcement agencies frequently use different definitions when discussing mass shootings, which can complicate our understanding of mass shooting trends and their relationship to gun policy" [6]. Notably, mental health consequences due to mass shootings have been well documented [7,8]. Empirical data suggested both significantly increased incidence and prevalence of psychiatric disorders in the after math of a mass shooting, including posttraumatic stress disorder, major depression, generalized anxiety disorder, acute stress disorder, and alcoholrelated conditions, among survivors, victims/survivors' families and friends, as well as members of affected communities [7,8].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Notably, mental health consequences due to mass shootings have been well documented [7,8]. Empirical data suggested both significantly increased incidence and prevalence of psychiatric disorders in the after math of a mass shooting, including posttraumatic stress disorder, major depression, generalized anxiety disorder, acute stress disorder, and alcoholrelated conditions, among survivors, victims/survivors' families and friends, as well as members of affected communities [7,8]. Similarly, ten years after the mass-casualty incident at Virginia Tech, researchers revealed both profound emotional and economic impact of the tragedy in addition to the extremely disturbing number of casualties [9].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Are We Ready in Case of a Campus Shooting?

Xin,

Schmitz,

Brueggemann

et al. 2020

J Pub Health Issue Pract

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Objective: The purpose of this study is to examine college students' perception, attitude, and knowledge of an active shooter incident in order to identify and aid their future campus public health emergency preparedness training.Methods: It is a cross-sectional study, and a total of 455 undergraduate and graduate students were recruited from a variety of majors enrolled in 19 randomly selected classes. A 22-question semistructured survey questionnaire was distributed and completed by the participants. Data was analyzed both quantitatively and qualitatively.Results: Approximately, 82% of the participants indicated that they would be panicked or terrified during a campus shooting and more than half of the participants thought that an active shooter incident could happen to any campus and perceived that their current institution was prepared for it. Participants presented moderate knowledge of an active shooter preparedness. Less than 32% of the participants had prior gun violence preparedness training, and more than 83% of them emphasized the importance of routine emergency preparedness training. There was no clear trend indicating that a higher student classification led to a better preparedness.Conclusions: Attention should largely be given to developing consistent, tailored, and evidence-based institutional emergency training programs to facilitate a campus-wide readiness.

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“…Public mass shootings significantly impact survivors, families, and entire communities (Cowan et al, 2020; Myers, 1994). As described by Myers, “no one who sees a disaster is untouched by it” (Myers, 1994, p. 1).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

“It will stay with me forever”: The experiences of physicians treating victims of public mass shootings.

Cowan¹,

Cole²,

Lee³

et al. 2024

Traumatology

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Mass shooting incidents (MSIs) significantly impact survivors, families, communities, and the physicians who treat the victims. The impact of mass shootings on first responders has been explored in previous studies; however, little is known about the effect of these incidents on treating physicians. This study’s objective was to explore emergency physicians and surgeons’ experiences during each of the psychological phases of disaster after treating victims of mass shootings. We interviewed nine participants who self-identified as emergency physicians or surgeons. Each participant had treated victims of a public mass shooting in the United States. Seven themes emerged from the data regarding physician experiences throughout the phases of disaster after treating victims of mass shootings. These themes included preparedness, a surge of patients, compartmentalization of emotions and release, mental health support, community cohesion, long-term impact, and new perspective and purpose. There is an unrecognized emotional toll on physicians when treating the casualties from MSIs. Our findings support the importance of offering mental health support to physicians immediately and longitudinally after treating victims of mass shootings. Additionally, following these incidents, physicians should be provided space and time to decompress and process their emotions both individually and collectively within their communities.

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Supporting Survivors of Public Mass Shootings

Cited by 12 publications

References 0 publications

Quantifying the risk of mass shootings at specific locations

Quantifying the risk of mass shootings at specific locations

Are We Ready in Case of a Campus Shooting?

“It will stay with me forever”: The experiences of physicians treating victims of public mass shootings.

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