![]() "We also know that those that have very little social support or those who have already had significant mental health issues prior to the event like anxiety or depression." And these kids are more likely to be from communities of color, which are at a higher risk of experiencing chronic violence and also deaths from other causes. "For example, we know that kids who have experienced prior traumas or losses are at a higher risk for developing longer-term PTSD," Kaplow says. He remembers catching himself looking for the exits at a concert he attended with his family in recent years, "in case something were to happen," he told NPR's Steve Inskeep following the shooting in Baltimore on Sunday.Īdults can also develop some behavioral health issues like substance abuse, social withdrawal and even suicidal thoughts.Īnd children who have experienced gun violence are also at a risk of long-term mental health issues, especially those with certain preexisting risk factors. That sense of hyper vigilance due to gun violence is something that has spread across the country, according to Don Rodricks, a columnist at the Baltimore Sun. "People are hyper vigilant, are on edge, may have trouble sleeping or eating, may be extremely nervous to leave loved ones," says Kaplow, who has assisted communities affected by both the Santa Fe high school shooting in 2018, as well as the mass shooting last year at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas. In the immediate aftermath of gun violence, people in affected communities often experience symptoms of "acute stress," says psychologist Julie Kaplow, executive vice president of trauma and grief programs and policy at the Meadows Mental Health Policy Institute in Texas. Those numbers are even higher in communities of color.Ī recent study by the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia found that children within a five-block-radius of a shooting were more likely to end of up in a hospital emergency room in the weeks after the shooting, with symptoms of mental health problems like anxiety and suicidal thoughts. Nearly 1 in 5 adult respondents to the poll said they've lost a family member to gun violence, and a similar number said they have witnessed someone being shot. ![]() Studies show that people closest to gun violence, who witness it, or are injured, or who lose a loved one or an acquaintance, or even who have a loved one who was present at an incident, are at highest risk of mental health impacts, she adds.Ī recent poll by KFF (formerly the Kaiser Family Foundation) found that a significant number of Americans have had a direct experience of gun violence. "The names of those communities are now linked to mass violence, whether it is Sandy Hook, or whether it is Oklahoma City, Columbine. "Any time a community is impacted by large-scale mass violence, the community is changed forever," says psychologist Robin Gurwitch at Duke University. A visitor wipes tears at a remembrance ceremony in Highland Park, Ill., Tuesday, one year after a shooter took seven lives at the city's Fourth of July parade.
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