Understanding the Short- and Long-Term Impacts of Childhood Exposure to Violence: Evidence from School Shootings

项目总结/摘要 校园枪击案在美国越来越频繁。当公众的注意力集中在受害者身上时， 更多的人经历了枪击事件并幸存下来：超过24万名学生已经在 在过去的二十年里，学校发生了枪击事件。大量文献描述了通过 儿童时期遭受暴力的创伤可能对个人福祉产生不利影响， 研究表明，在童年后期，接触暴力与不良后果的发生率较高相关， 和成年。但这些文献只能提供暗示性的证据，因为暴露和暴露之间的其他差异， 非接触者可能混淆记录的关系，削弱因果推理。而且 对这些影响如何转化为其他行为和教育成果的了解有限， 长期的经济福祉，或干预措施，可以缓冲负面影响，并促进 在这些高风险环境中，青年人的适应能力、复原力和积极发展。该项目旨在 通过研究校园枪击事件对儿童短期和长期健康的因果影响， 长期的行为，教育和经济成果，使用25年的所有公共行政数据， 德克萨斯州的学生，与64起校园枪击事件的日期和地点有关。该项目将使用 差异中的差异模型来估计学校枪击事件对一系列学生结果的影响， 包括出勤、停学和开除、因情绪障碍转入特殊教育， 考试成绩、辍学、高中毕业、大学入学/毕业以及成人就业和收入。 对于拍摄前后观察到的结果，分析将比较拍摄前后的变化， 经历枪击事件的学校学生的结果，相对于之前/之后的变化， 没有枪击事件的对照学校的学生的时间段。对于长期结果，仅在 暴露，分析将比较学生入学的学校在拍摄时， 已经毕业或尚未入学的学生，相对于对照学校这些队列之间的差异， 驾车猖獗该项目还将通过以下方式确定受枪击影响最严重的儿童群体： 亚组分析比较了射击严重程度，学生种族/民族，暴露时的年级水平， 和社会经济地位。该项目还将确定是否以及哪些类型的学校资源 可以通过分组分析来缓冲校园枪击事件的负面影响， 在有和没有学校资源官员、学校心理学家和学校- 有心理健康服务的健康中心。研究结果将有助于政策制定者、学校和家长 了解这些影响，确定最需要资源以减轻不利影响的儿童分组， 并了解帮助经历过校园枪击事件的儿童的有效资源。

PROJECT SUMMARY/ABSTRACT School shootings are increasingly frequent in the United States. While public attention focuses on victims who were killed, many more people experience a shooting and survive: More than 240,000 students have been on school grounds during a shooting in the last two decades. A large literature characterizes the pathways through which trauma from exposure to violence during childhood can adversely impact individual wellbeing, and existing studies show that exposure to violence is correlated with higher rates of adverse outcomes in later childhood and adulthood. But this literature can only offer suggestive evidence, as other differences between exposed and non-exposed individuals could confound the documented relationships and weaken causal inference. And there is limited knowledge on how these impacts translate into other behavioral and educational outcomes and long- term economic wellbeing, or on interventions that can buffer against the negative consequences and promote adjustment, resilience, and positive development for youth in these high-risk environments. This project aims to advance knowledge on these issues by studying the causal effects of school shootings on children's short- and long-term behavioral, educational, and economic outcomes, using 25 years of administrative data on all public school students in Texas, linked to data on the dates and locations of 64 school shootings. The project will use difference-in-difference models to estimate the effects of school shootings on a range of student outcomes, including attendance, suspensions and expulsions, transitions into special education for emotional disturbance, test scores, dropout, high school graduation, college enrollment/graduation, and adult employment and earnings. For outcomes observed before and after a shooting, the analysis will compare the before/after change in outcomes of students at schools that experience a shooting, relative to the before/after change over the same time period for students at control schools without shootings. For long-term outcomes only observed post- exposure, the analysis will compare students enrolled in schools at the time of the shooting to those who have already graduated or not yet enrolled, relative to the difference between these cohorts at control schools without shootings. The project will also identify groups of children who are most severely affected by shootings through sub-group analyses that compare effects by shooting severity, student race/ethnicity, grade level at exposure, and socioeconomic status. The project will additionally determine whether and which types of school resources can buffer against negative effects of school shootings through sub-group analyses that compare the effects of exposure across schools that do and do not have school resource officers, school psychologists, and school- based health centers with mental health services. Results will help policymakers, schools, and parents understand these impacts, identify sub-groups of children most in need of resources to mitigate adverse effects, and learn about effective resources for helping children who have experienced a school shooting.