November 2016

Immediate and short-term effects of childhood trauma have been a focus of clinical attention. However, recent studies demonstrate the far-reaching effects of childhood trauma related to depression and suicidality in adulthood. The evidence to support these associations is presented here. Childhood trauma and suicidality Fuller-Thomson and colleagues 1 examined the relationship between adverse childhood experiences and suicidality in adulthood. Data were obtained from the 2012 Canadian...

The impact of Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs)— childhood experiences of abuse, neglect and family dysfunction—on the health and wellbeing of college students nationwide is relatively unknown. And yet, approximately two-thirds of University of Minnesota students experience at least one adverse childhood experience before entering college. On Friday, Dec. 2, the U of M will host a one-day conference that brings together college administrators, educators, students, public health...

As a family court judge in Flint, Michigan, I see poverty flood my courtroom in a vicious cycle of cases in dependency, delinquency, criminality, and then back to dependency. The mantra in family court is that no one should lose their kids because they’re poor. The sad reality is that this happens all too often when generational poverty creates what Nicholas Kristof calls a “broken class.” Many times it falls to the courts to fix families. It would be nice if it were easy. But often courts...

Most of the third-graders in Anita Parameswaran’s class at Daniel Webster Elementary in San Francisco have had experiences so awful that their brains won’t let them easily forget. “Whether it be that they’ve been sexually molested, or they’ve seen domestic violence, or shootings, or they know somebody who’s passed away,” Parameswaran said, “I would say every single year about 75 percent, give or take, come in with a lot of trauma.” Now a national campaign is recognizing, backed by research...

Georgia Rep. Tom Price has been a fierce critic of the Affordable Care Act and a leading advocate of repealing and replacing the 2010 health care law. Price, an orthopedic surgeon from the suburbs of Atlanta, introduced his own legislation to repeal and replace Obamacare in the current Congress and the three previous sessions. Price's plan – known as the Empowering Patients First Act — was the basis for a subsequent health care proposal unveiled by House Speaker Paul Ryan, with Price's...

Biomedical research is going big-time: Megaprojects that collect vast stores of data are proliferating rapidly. But scientists' ability to make sense of all that information isn't keeping up. This conundrum took center stage at a meeting of patient advocates, called Partnering For Cures , in New York City on Nov. 15. On the one hand, there's an embarrassment of riches, as billions of dollars are spent on these megaprojects. There's the White House's Cancer Moonshot (which seeks to make 10...

On election night, as it became clear that Donald Trump would be the country's next president, Dorcas Lind was feeling unsettled. With her children tucked in bed, Lind watched as the results trickled in and battleground states like Pennsylvania, Florida and North Carolina turned red on the TV map. She thought about work. Maybe, she thought, this would be good for business. Or, maybe, it was time for a career change. Lind is a diversity consultant in the health care industry. It's her job to...

Sandra M. Chafouleas, a professor in the University of Connecticut's Neag School of Education, reflects on the film "Resilience" and how it can help encourage new and veteran educators to use a "whole-child" lens to support students and their families.

Futures Without Violence hosted a webinar to give a brief overview of compassion fatigue or vicarious trauma and provide strategies to enhance health, healing, and stress reduction for individuals and organization wide. The following are the learning objectives for the webinar: Identify how individual, organizational and work-related factors contribute to an individual’s experience of secondary trauma and ability to heal from it; Discuss the reasons organizations benefit from supporting an...

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Suicide Prevention Evaluation Project Report Indigenous suicide is a significant population health challenge for Australia. Suicide has emerged in the past half century as a major cause of Indigenous premature mortality and is a contributor to the overall Indigenous health and life expectancy gap. In 2014 it was the fifth leading cause of death among Indigenous people, and the age-standardised suicide rate was around twice as high as the non-Indigenous...

For the first time ever, a sitting U.S. surgeon general has declared substance abuse a public-health crisis. “It’s time to change how we view addiction,” Vivek Murthy said in a statement last week, which was accompanied by a lengthy report on the issue. “Not as a moral failing, but as a chronic illness that must be treated with skill, urgency and compassion. The way we address this crisis is a test for America.” Murthy’s statement is a major victory for those advocates who have long hoped...

A new report from Children Now details wide disparities in children’s well-being across California’s 58 counties. The 2016–2017 California County Scorecard of Children’s Well-Being looks at a series of indicators organized around the three domains of child welfare and economic well-being; health; and education. The report provides a comparison over time for each of 28 indicators, as well as a breakdown by ethnicity on each data point for every county in the state. Children Now, an advocacy...