School Shootings Are Raising Anxiety and Panic in U.S. Children

The May 24 mass shooting in a Uvalde, Texas elementary school, in which a gunman killed 19 young children and two teachers, was the third-deadliest school shooting in U.S. history. But it was also just the latest of an increasingly common type of U.S. tragedy—one that experts say is saddling American schoolchildren, even the youngest, with rising levels of anxiety and other mental-health problems. Even when children aren’t directly involved in school shootings, they are deeply affected by them and often experience anxiety and depression as a result, says Kira Riehm, a postdoctoral fellow at the Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health. “These events are extremely high profile, and they’re portrayed hugely in the media,” says Riehm. They also happen with alarming frequency. In 2022 so far, there have already been 27 school shootings in which someone was injured or killed, according to Education Week’s school shooting tracker. [time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”] In a study published in 2021 in JAMA, Riehm and other researchers surveyed more than 2,000 11th and 12th graders in Los Angeles about their fear of shootings and violence at their own or other schools. Researchers followed up with those same students and found that kids who were initially more concerned were more likely to meet the criteria for generalized anxiety disorder and panic disorder six months later—suggesting that kids internalize these fears, which...
Source: TIME: Health - Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Tags: Uncategorized healthscienceclimate Public Health Source Type: news