Watching mass violence in the media could be making us more worried and avoidant

Embargoed until: Publicly released: 2026-06-13 01:00

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US researchers looking into communities affected by mass violence incidents (MVIs) - including mass shootings or stabbings - say they found a link between the more media people had consumed and the higher the chance those people were worried about MVIs, and the chance that they would avoid public places. Additionally, the team say nearly two-thirds of people from these communities reported being worried about MVIs, and close to a third of them were avoiding public places since the MVI.

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Journal/
conference: JAMA Network Open

Research:Paper

Organisation/s: Medical University of South Carolina, USA

Funder: This projectwas funded by awards 2017-MU-GX-K144, 2020-V7-GX-K002, and 15POVC-22-GK- 00327-AERX from the Office for Victims of Crime of the US Department of Justice to the Medical University of South Carolina (Dr Kilpatrick). Dr Morgan was supported in part by grant T32MH018869 from the National Institute on Mental Health.

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