ArticleSocial science & medicine (1982)2018
Beyond the trigger: The mental health consequences of in-home firearm access among children of gun owners.
Article in Social science & medicine (1982), 2018. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 7 papers.
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Who cites it
7 citing papers in PubMed.
- A scoping review of empirical research on firearms and firearm violence among sexual and gender minority populations in the United States.Annals of behavioral medicine : a publication of the Society of Behavioral Medicine · 2025Article
- Mental Health Care Utilization Among Children and Adolescents With a Firearm Injury.JAMA surgery · 2023Article
- Age at first alcohol use and weapon carrying among adolescents: Findings from the 2019 Youth Risk Behavior Survey.SSM - population health · 2021Article
- Firearm access and adolescent health: Safety in numbers?SSM - population health · 2020Article
- Risk and Protective Factors Associated with Youth Firearm Access, Possession or Carrying.American journal of criminal justice : AJCJ · 2020Article
- Gun ownership and fear.SSM - population health · 2019Article
- Community mobilization for rural suicide prevention: Process, learning and behavioral outcomes from Promoting Community Conversations About Research to End Suicide (PC CARES) in Northwest Alaska.Social science & medicine (1982) · 2019Article
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Abstract
rationaleThe high prevalence of household firearms in the U.S. has ignited a growing body of research seeking to understand its health consequences. While a large number of studies examine the impact of firearm availability on health risks of gun owners in the household, relatively little attention is given to whether and how in-home firearm access may shape psychological outcomes among children of gun owners.
objectiveThis study examined whether and how in-home firearm access is associated with adolescents' depressive symptoms. Given a strong social/cultural association between masculinity and gun possession as well as stark gender differences in perceptions of safety and attitudes toward firearms, this study also investigated whether this association differs for male and female adolescents.
methodsParticipants were drawn from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health (Add Health) (n = 14,013). This study used random- and fixed-effects regression analyses as well as propensity-score matching models in order to reduce the chances of bias due to individual-level heterogeneity.
resultsThe present study showed that gaining access to guns at home was significantly related to increased depressive symptoms among children of gun owners, even after accounting for both observed and unobserved individual characteristics. Both fixed-effects and propensity-score matching models yielded consistent results. In addition, the observed association between in-home firearm access and depression was more pronounced for female adolescents. Finally, this study found suggestive evidence that the perceptions of safety, especially about school (but not neighborhood), are an important mechanism linking in-home firearm access to adolescent depression.
conclusionAs a substantial proportion of U.S. adolescents reported in-home firearm access, the findings of this study suggest that scholars and policymakers must seriously consider mental as well as physical health consequences related to household access to firearms among children of gun owners.
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