Last Spring, RWJF alums Katie McLaughlin and Margaret Sheridan were in the middle of a study on trauma that, like so many of its kind, relied upon artificial situations created in a lab. But in the middle of this study, a real-life trauma occurred: the marathon bombing. As McLaughlin told New England Public Radio, this provided a unique opportunity to look at how children and adolescents who had experienced previous trauma and stress responded to a new trauma. The study ultimately found that early exposure to violence makes someone more, not less, sensitized to violence later on. McLaughlin and Sheridan also made another important discovery: the more that a young person watched coverage of the bombing and subsequent manhunt, the more likely he or she was to feel unsafe or under threat, and to develop mental health problems afterwards.