Hullenaar Keith L, Rivara Frederick, Bruns Eric J
Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, University of Washington, United States of America.
Department of Epidemiology, University of Washington, United States of America; Department of Pediatrics, University of Washington, United States of America.
Prev Med. 2025 Jul;196:108296. doi: 10.1016/j.ypmed.2025.108296. Epub 2025 May 4.
To compare the presence and rates of school police officers, security guards, nurses, psychologists, social workers, and counselors between US K-12 schools that did and did not experience shooting incidents.
School shootings were defined as any discharge of a live firearm round on school grounds, as documented by the press and recorded by the Everytown for Gun Safety between 2017 and 2019. Using Civil Rights Data Collection (2017-2018), we compared staffing patterns between 200 schools that experienced shootings and 86,079 schools without incidents during 2017-2019. Propensity score matching using 32 school-, district-, and community-level covariates yielded analytical samples of 180 shooting-affected schools and 11,063 matched controls. We examined the prevalence and per-1000-student rates of school police officers, security guards, nurses, psychologists, social workers, and counselors.
The 180 schools that experienced shootings showed higher prevalence of school police officers compared to matched controls (50.6 % vs 41.8 %; difference: 8.8 percentage points [95 % CI, 1.6-15.9]). However, these schools had significantly lower rates per 1000 students of nurses (1.37 vs 1.88; difference: -0.50 [-0.95 to -0.06]), psychologists (0.81 vs 1.44; difference: -0.63 [-0.98 to -0.28]), and counselors (2.94 vs 3.71; difference: -0.77 [-1.25 to -0.29]). These patterns remained consistent across multiple sensitivity analyses.
Schools that experienced shootings demonstrated lower rates of health and mental health staff but higher law enforcement presence compared to matched control schools. These findings suggest the need for increased investment in mental health resources and reevaluation of current school safety approaches.
比较发生过枪击事件和未发生过枪击事件的美国K-12学校中校园警察、保安、护士、心理学家、社会工作者和顾问的配备情况及比例。
校园枪击事件定义为2017年至2019年期间，媒体报道且被“枪支安全城市联盟”记录在案的、在校园内发射实弹的任何事件。利用民权数据收集（2017 - 2018年），我们比较了2017年至2019年期间200所发生过枪击事件的学校与86,079所未发生过枪击事件的学校的人员配备模式。使用32个学校、学区和社区层面的协变量进行倾向得分匹配，得到了180所受枪击影响的学校和11,063所匹配对照学校的分析样本。我们研究了校园警察、保安、护士、心理学家、社会工作者和顾问的普及率以及每千名学生中的配备率。
与匹配的对照学校相比，180所发生过枪击事件的学校中校园警察的普及率更高（50.6%对41.8%；差异：8.8个百分点[95%置信区间，1.6 - 15.9]）。然而，这些学校每千名学生中护士（1.37对1.88；差异：-0.50[-0.95至-0.06]）、心理学家（0.81对1.44；差异：-0.63[-0.98至-0.28]）和顾问（2.94对3.71；差异：-0.77[-1.25至-0.29]）的配备率显著更低。这些模式在多项敏感性分析中保持一致。
与匹配的对照学校相比，发生过枪击事件的学校中健康和心理健康工作人员的配备率较低，但执法人员的配备率较高。这些发现表明需要增加对心理健康资源的投入，并重新评估当前的校园安全方法。
