Local Exposure to School Shootings and Youth Antidepressant Use

Maya Rossin-Slater (), Molly Schnell, Hannes Schwandt, Sam Trejo () and Lindsey Uniat ()
Additional contact information
Maya Rossin-Slater: Stanford University
Sam Trejo: Stanford University
Lindsey Uniat: Yale University

No 12837, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

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 in a difference-in-difference framework. We find that local exposure to fatal school shootings increases youth antidepressant use by 21.4 percent in the following two years. These effects are smaller in areas with a higher density of mental health providers who focus on behavioral, rather than pharmacological, interventions.

Keywords: antidepressants; youth mental health; school shootings (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I18 J13 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 40 pages
Date: 2019-12
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-neu and nep-ure
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (6)

Published - published in: PNAS, 2020, 117 (38), 23484 - 23489

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https://docs.iza.org/dp12837.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Local exposure to school shootings and youth antidepressant use (2020)
Working Paper: Local Exposure to School Shootings and Youth Antidepressant Use (2019)
Working Paper: Local Exposure to School Shootings and Youth Antidepressant Use (2019)
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