Impact of Mass Shootings on Mental Health Policy

Abstract

How do shock events that highlight a policy shortcoming impact the policy-making process? With the recent disturbing rise in mass shootings is it possible that their association with mental illnesses can provide an impetus for better mental health care policies by highlighting the failure of existing mental health policies? This paper examines how mass shootings impact mental health policy-making by analyzing the response of state governments to such events. I construct a novel dataset of mass shootings, media coverage, and mental health legislation to investigate how these events impact the introduction and passage of laws related to mental health care. The findings indicate that mass shootings result in an increase in mental health-related legislation, with a particularly strong effect on laws that improve access to mental health care in schools. The study also finds that media coverage of mass shootings leads to an increase in bills but has no effect on whether they are enacted into law. Furthermore, there is no evidence that the political party or the race of the shooter has any impact on mental health policy. The findings suggest that mass shootings highlight the dangers of un-diagnosed mental illnesses and create a `policy window' for the enactment of policies aimed at improving access to mental health care with the effect being more noteworthy for school-related mental health policies.

Keywords: mental health policy, mass shooting, insurance, school, firearm, community mental health clinic

JEL Classification: D78, C81, C54, D04, I18, K32