Cogent Mental Health

Firearm Violence and Mental Wellbeing among Children and Teens

More than 250,000 people die from firearms globally each year and with the Americas – including the United States (U.S.) – accounting for over half of these deaths.  Several countries, including Brazil, Colombia, and Mexico, have been contending with firearm violence for many years. And firearm violence specifically persists as one of the most devastating public health and safety crises in the U.S. especially.  Indeed, each year, approximately 100,000 Americans in the U.S. are shot with a firearm and more than 45,000 of these individuals succumb to their firearm injuries. Over 17,000 of those injured are children. Firearms are now the single leading cause of death among children and teens in the U.S. And racial, geographic, and economic disparities have placed subgroups of children at heightened risk.  Moreover, these numbers don’t begin to account for the myriad ways in which children and teens across the U.S. and globally experience firearm violence (witnessing gunfire, hearing gunshots, losing friends or family members to firearm violence, among a range of such experiences) in their homes, communities, and schools.  Although research in the area of firearm violence has been meaningfully and rapidly growing over the past few years, critical gaps in knowledge and practice remain.

The specific connections between firearm violence more broadly and mental health and well-being have been studied, however, robust empirical research is needed to identify and evaluate specific mental health interventions and services that are needed as we think about the meaningful prevention of firearm violence globally and in different forms (whether that be in the context of firearm suicide prevention, interpersonal violence, school violence prevention, mass violence, among others). Moreover, the specific mental health and well-being needs of children and teens in different nations and in the aftermath of exposure to firearm violence – and in the short- and long-term have been understudied.

Cogent Mental Health is inviting submissions for a new Special Article Collection focused on “Firearm Violence and Mental Well-Being among Children and Teens”.  We are specifically interested in a broad range of empirical papers including quantitative, qualitative, mixed-methods approaches, basic and clinical studies, epidemiological and psychophysiological works, as well as conceptual papers, narrative reviews, and systematic reviews with or without meta-analysis. Given the highly transdisciplinary nature of the field of firearm violence prevention, papers from all disciplines (public health, criminology, clinical psychology, school health, epidemiology, and many others) are encouraged. And papers with a focus on firearm violence prevention in the U.S. and globally are encouraged as well.

• This Article Collection will solicit articles related to the following areas. However, we welcome all submissions related to the overall issue of firearm violence and its relationship to various aspects of mental health among youth.
• Evaluating the cost-effectiveness of expanding the capacity of child mental health services in schools by hiring more school counselors, school psychologists, and other qualified and trained school–based mental health professionals;
• Evaluating intervention efforts for teachers, parents, and siblings who are collectively able to provide support to students who are at particular risk for poor mental health outcomes during and outside of the school day;
• Evaluating the effectiveness of state and local agency efforts who have made funding available directly to school districts to increase the availability of mental health services for teachers, staff, and students alike.
• Determining which specific trauma–informed practices are most needed for K-12 schools to adopt and so they can help mitigate additional individual harms associated with school gun violence exposure.
• Identifying and evaluating best practices for caregivers, teachers, school leadership, and clinicians alike to assess symptoms of traumatic stress;
• Evaluate the role of school discipline policies on youth mental health and well-being outcomes;
• Work evaluating the implementation of after-school and other supplementary education efforts for children and their families at increasing access to safe spaces and reducing firearm violence and its related harms;
• Identifying best practices for teachers and school staff to support students as they engage in emergency preparedness efforts (e.g. school lockdown or active shooter drills).