Blog

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Childhood trauma may alter the structure of the brain in a way that makes clinical depression more likely to be severe and recurrent, according to new research published in The Lancet Psychiatry journal. Some studies have shown a link between maltreatment and altered brain structure, while others have shown a link between maltreatment and major depressive disorder. The new study is the first to directly establish an association between maltreatment experiences, brain structural alterations...

IF I TOLD you that one in four New Hampshire children would experience serious, negative health outcomes later in life unless we put in place a proven system of prevention today, would you support investing in that prevention? This is actually an urgent question for New Hampshire, as a state, to respond to, as a recent survey of New Hampshire adults found that those who had experienced early adversity are in poorer physical and mental health than their peers who did not experience adversity.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Atlanta has announced an Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) Research & Evaluation Fellowship opportunity that resides in the National Center for Injury Prevention and Control (NCIPC) at CDC. The new fellowship position reflects a growing ACEs capacity within the CDC. The announcement states “The selected candidate will assist with research related to evaluating comprehensive community-based prevention strategies for primary...

New data on health across the U.S. shows that high housing costs are harming Americans’ health – and that some communities are affected more than others. The 2019 County Health Rankings , an annual collaborative report from the University of Wisconsin Population Health Institute and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, shows that 11 percent of U.S. households are severely burdened by housing costs. This means that more than 800,000 households spend at least half of their income on housing. In...

I have talked about childhood trauma a lot in previous articles so I won’t go into the mechanism at length here. But in short, our experiences and environment in our formative years shape us into who we are as adults. As children, we experience many traumas and “microtraumas” that many of us are not even aware of nor identify them as such. Dissociation , after all, is our primary response to childhood trauma. And so, we carry trauma from our formative years long into adulthood. This trauma...

In many a company, you’ve heard the talk about unconscious bias, and likely attended trainings and so forth, but are these efforts making a real difference the way we see and treat each other? In Biased: Uncovering the Hidden Prejudice That Shapes What We See, Think, and Do , Dr. Jennifer Eberhardt reveals the latest research and data, much of it her own, on racial bias and how it impacts us all every day. A Stanford social psychologist and MacArthur “Genius” award recipient, she is one of...

We visit Miami to talk with Dr. Cheryl Holder of Florida Clinicians For Climate Action, and Jorge, a fruit vendor who is feeling the effects of increasingly hot days firsthand. [For more on this story by LULU GARCIA-NAVARRO, go to https://www.npr.org/2019/03/24/706295403/how-climate-change-is-affecting-residents-health-in-miami ]

Be part of the movement to disrupt sexual violence and normalize consent culture on your campus... Join 'me too.' founder Tarana Burke , cultural scholar Yaba Blay (#ProfessionalBlackGirl), and special guests for in-depth conversations and strategy sessions centered around creating safe and accountable communities for students, faculty, administrators. Colleges and universities have been instrumental in the growth of the #metoo movement, bringing increased attention to the pervasiveness of...

CLEVELAND, Ohio — Dr. Nadine Burke Harris first noticed the effects of toxic stress more than a decade ago among the many children with behavioral and learning issues she treated in San Francisco’s low-income Bayview-Hunter’s Point neighborhood, the pediatrician and current California Surgeon General this morning told a standing-room only crowd attending University Hospitals’ Arthur and Edwina Burns endowed lecture in diversity. While the most common diagnosis for kids with attention and...

Foster parents often have trouble getting prompt help when a traumatized child in their care acts up or struggles to adapt to a new home. Frequently, they face two unsatisfactory choices, said Jenn Rexroad, executive director of the California Alliance of Caregivers, which represents foster-care families in the state: Figure out how to handle the problem on their own, or call 911 if they fear they or the child are unsafe. “There’s no continuity there between no help and kind of going to the...

People who have experienced trauma may feel greater sensitivity for others because of what was missing in their own lives. Rogers saw the need to use broadcast media to ask people to respect and love themselves and each other, starting with the child in all of us.