Mental Illness Plays Only "Limited" Role in Mass Violence: Paper

"Mental illness plays an 'important but limited role' in mass violence, according to a paper prepared for the National Council for Behavioral Health by the Medical Director Institute (MDI).

'While there is a modest link between mental illness and violence, there is no basis for the public’s generalized fear of people with mental illness,' said the paper, which summed up a recent panel of experts on mass violence convened by the MDI.

'Having a psychiatric diagnosis is neither necessary nor sufficient as a risk factor for committing an act of mass violence.'

The paper noted that mass violence is 'rare,' and has accounted for less than two-tenths of one percent of homicides in the U.S. between 2000 and 2016, even though the U.S. stands out among other advanced countries because of the frequent use of guns by violence perpetrators.

Efforts to tie such incidents to mental illness are understandable but misleading, the paper said."

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