Mitigating the mental health consequences of mass shootings: An in-silico experiment.

ABSTRACT:

Background

There is emerging evidence that mass shootings are associated with adverse mental health outcomes at the community level. Data from other mass-traumatic events examined the effectiveness of usual care (UC), (i.e., psychological first aid approaches without triage), and stepped care (SC) approaches, with triage, in reducing the burden of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in a community.

Methods

We built an agent-based model of 118,000 people that was demographically comparable to the population of Parkland and Coral Springs, Florida, US. We parametrized the model with data from other traumatic events. Using simulations, we then estimated the community prevalence of PTSD one month following the Stoneman Douglas High School (Florida, US) shooting and reported the

SUBMITTER: Abdalla SM 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9310116 | biostudies-literature | 2022 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature