Violence Against Women in the Pathway to Mass Shootings: A Scoping Review Protocol

Objective: The objective of this scoping review is to understand the extent and type of evidence related to violence against women (VAW) and mass shootings. Introduction: Mass shootings are a major public health concern, particularly in the United States, often resulting in serious physical and mental health impacts on victims and their communities. While prior studies have focused largely on individual and policy-level risk factors, emerging work highlights VAW as a common feature in mass shooting perpetrators’ histories. Despite this, no comprehensive review has synthesized this evidence, motivating a scoping review to clarify how VAW may function as a correlate of escalating mass violence and to inform prevention efforts. Inclusion Criteria: This scoping review will include studies of individuals who have perpetrated, or attempted mass shootings. The concept of interest is VAW aged 15 or older, including cis and trans women. The context includes mass shootings broadly defined as firearm-based attacks in public or populated settings, using author-defined criteria and threshold. Method: MEDLINE, PsycINFO, Scopus and Web of Science will be searched, supplemented by backward and forward citation searching of included articles, and grey literature searches in Google Scholar and ProQuest Dissertation and Theses. Searches will cover database inception to March 2026 and be limited to publications in the English language. Two reviewers will independently screen title/abstracts and full texts against predefined eligibility criteria. Data will be extracted using a standardized charting form. Evidence will be analyzed using descriptive tabulation and narrative synthesis. Results will be presented in tabular and narrative formats.