Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/215233 
Year of Publication: 
2019
Series/Report no.: 
IZA Discussion Papers No. 12837
Publisher: 
Institute of Labor Economics (IZA), Bonn
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.
Subjects: 
school shootings
youth mental health
antidepressants
JEL: 
I18
J13
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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