Discussion paper

DP14238 Local Exposure to School Shootings and Youth Antidepressant Use

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.

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Citation

Rossin-Slater, M, M Schnell, H Schwandt, S Trejo and L Uniat (2019), ‘DP14238 Local Exposure to School Shootings and Youth Antidepressant Use‘, CEPR Discussion Paper No. 14238. CEPR Press, Paris & London. https://cepr.org/publications/dp14238