School shootings are an escalating global public mental health concern. It has profound and long-lasting mental health consequences for children, adolescents, families, educational systems, and community. In recent decades, increased media visibility and cross-national occurrence have shifted school violence from isolated criminal events toward recognition as a complex developmental, psychosocial, and systemic phenomenon. Contemporary research highlights that school shootings emerge from interactions among individual mental health vulnerabilities, adverse developmental experiences, family and peer dynamics, digital and social environments, and institutional responses. Despite growing awareness, prevention and response strategies remain fragmented, frequently emphasizing either individual psychopathology or security-based approaches while neglecting broader ecological and public mental health determinants. Current challenges include insufficient early identification mechanisms, unequal access to youth mental health care, limited cross-sector collaboration, and inadequate integration of prevention, intervention, and post-incident recovery systems across educational, healthcare, and community settings.
The goal of this Research Topic is to address school shootings through an integrated public mental health framework that moves beyond reactive and security-centered models toward coordinated, evidence-based prevention and intervention systems. A central problem lies in the persistent gap between identifiable pre-incident warning signs and effective system responses. Accumulating evidence indicates that many perpetrators demonstrate observable risk trajectories, including social isolation, bullying exposure, trauma history, behavioral dysregulation, untreated psychiatric conditions, and suicidal or homicidal ideation. These signals often remain unrecognized or poorly coordinated across institutions.
The Topic seeks to advance solutions grounded in recent developments such as multidisciplinary threat assessment teams, school-based mental health services, family-centered prevention models, and community-integrated care pathways. Particular emphasis is placed on trauma-informed and culturally sensitive recovery approaches for affected populations experiencing post-traumatic stress, depression, anxiety, complicated grief, and long-term functional impairment. From an expert perspective in school-targeted violence prevention, strengthening interagency communication, improving mental health system preparedness, and implementing longitudinal, developmentally informed risk monitoring are critical advances. By integrating clinical, educational, public health, and policy perspectives, this Research Topic aims to support scalable systems capable of preventing violence, mitigating harm, and promoting sustained community resilience and youth wellbeing.
Suitable themes for manuscripts include, but are not limited to:
• Public mental health determinants of school shootings
Research examining multilevel risk and protective factors, including developmental vulnerabilities, psychiatric disorders, adverse childhood experiences, family dynamics, peer relations, digital environments, and sociocultural influences contributing to school-targeted violence.
• Early identification and prevention in children and adolescents
Studies addressing behavioral warning signs, developmental risk trajectories, bullying and social exclusion, suicidality/violence pathways, and evidence-based screening or early intervention strategies within educational and community settings.
• School-based mental health systems and preventive interventions
Evaluation of universal, selective, and indicated school mental health programs; accessibility of psychological services; teacher and staff preparedness; and integration of mental health promotion into educational policy and practice.
• Threat assessment and multidisciplinary response models
Research on behavioral threat assessment teams, interagency collaboration (education, mental health, law enforcement, social services), decision-making frameworks, ethical considerations, and effectiveness of structured violence prevention protocols.
• Family, peer, and community-level protective mechanisms
Investigations into family communication, parenting practices, community cohesion, youth connectedness, and resilience-building interventions that reduce escalation toward violence.
• Mental health system preparedness and policy responses
Analyses of national and regional preparedness models, service coordination, crisis response infrastructures, workforce capacity, and policy innovations supporting prevention and rapid response.
• Psychological impact and trauma-informed post-incident care
Studies addressing short- and long-term mental health outcomes among survivors, students, families, educators, and communities, including PTSD, grief, anxiety, and recovery trajectories.
• Recovery, rehabilitation, and long-term community resilience
Research exploring continuity of care, reintegration processes, culturally sensitive recovery models, and community healing following school violence incidents.
• Ethical, media, and societal dimensions of school shootings
Examination of media reporting effects, contagion and copycat phenomena, stigma related to mental disorders, ethical risk communication, and responsible public discourse.
• Innovations and future directions in public mental health prevention
Contributions addressing digital monitoring tools, artificial intelligence in risk detection, cross-national comparisons, implementation science, and scalable prevention models across diverse social and policy contexts.
Article types and fees
This Research Topic accepts the following article types, unless otherwise specified in the Research Topic description:
- Brief Research Report
- Clinical Trial
- Community Case Study
- Conceptual Analysis
- Curriculum, Instruction, and Pedagogy
- Data Report
- Editorial
- FAIR² Data
- FAIR² DATA Direct Submission
- … View all formats
Articles that are accepted for publication by our external editors following rigorous peer review incur a publishing fee charged to Authors, institutions, or funders.
Keywords: school shootings, public mental health, school targeted violence, mental health services, community programs
Important note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.
