August 12, 2019 | 3 min read
Mental Illness and Mass Shootings
By Cassandra Crifasi, PhD, MPH, Emma Beth McGinty, PhD, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health
Most people with serious mental illness are never violent toward others. Due to the media’s misleading focus on the role of mental illness in gun violence generally and mass shootings specifically, many people are afraid that a diagnosis of a serious mental health condition like schizophrenia means they or their loved one are at high risk of hurting other people, which is not supported by the research evidence.