Spatial Clustering of Student Depression and Gun Violence Exposure: Case Study from Los Angeles

Increased exposure to gun-related violence may lead to higher rates of depression and truancy among students, yet the spatial scale and magnitude of this relationship remain poorly understood. Our goal is to quantify the relationship between student mental health outcomes and exposure to gun-related incidents. Using the California Healthy Kids Survey (CHKS), a statewide survey administered to elementary and secondary students, and publicly available gun violence incident data for Los Angeles County, we analyze school-level depression and truancy rates alongside census-derived contextual variables. We use bivariate Moran’s I tests to assess spatial clustering between student depression and proximate gun violence incidents. Our results indicate a statistically significant spatial autocorrelation (p < .05) between student depression rates and gun violence exposure within LA County.