Measures for Community and Neighborhood Research is the first book of its kind to compile measures focused on communities and neighborhoods in one accessible resource. Organized into two main sections, the first provides the rationale, structure and purpose, and analysis of methodological issues, along with a conceptual and theoretical framework; the second section contains 10 chapters that synthesize, analyze, and describe measures for community and neighborhood research, with tables that summarize highlighted measures. The book will get readers thinking about which aspects of the neighborhood may be most important to measure in different research designs and also help researchers, practitioners, funders, and others more closely examine the impact of their work in communities and neighborhoods.
Explains the neurological, emotional, and behavioral impacts of violence and trauma experienced by newborns, infants, children, and teenagers. Traumatic events known as adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) can affect children physically, mentally, and emotionally, sometimes with long-term health and behavioral effects. Abuse, neglect, exposure to community and domestic violence, and household dysfunction all have the potential to alter brain development and behavior, but few people are able to recognize or respond to trauma in children. Given the prevalence of childhood exposure to violence--with one in four children ages 5 to 15 living in households with only moderate levels of safety and nurturance and infants and children ages 0 to 3 comprising the highest percentage of those maltreated--it is imperative that students and professionals alike be able to identify types and consequences of violence and trauma. This book provides readers with the information they need in order to know how to detect and prevent ACEs and to help children who have lived through them. Explains the effects of a range of types of violence and trauma, including child abuse, sexual abuse, family violence, teen dating violence, loss of parent or caregiver, exposure to natural disaster, and more Addresses the impacts of violence and trauma during infancy and early childhood, middle childhood, and adolescence Details mental health interventions to encourage resilience and posttraumatic growth Describes how public systems from schools to pediatric and obstetrical clinics to juvenile justice systems identify and work with children affected by violence and trauma
With “groundbreaking research on the psychology of resilience” (Adam Grant), a top expert on human trauma argues that we vastly overestimate how common PTSD is in and fail to recognize how resilient people really are. After 9/11, mental health professionals flocked to New York to handle what everyone assumed would be a flood of trauma cases. Oddly, the flood never came. In The End of Trauma, pioneering psychologist George A. Bonanno argues that we failed to predict the psychological response to 9/11 because most of what we understand about trauma is wrong. For starters, it’s not nearly as common as we think. In fact, people are overwhelmingly resilient to adversity. What we often interpret as PTSD are signs of a natural process of learning how to deal with a specific situation. We can cope far more effectively if we understand how this process works. Drawing on four decades of research, Bonanno explains what makes us resilient, why we sometimes aren’t, and how we can better handle traumatic stress. Hopeful and humane, The End of Trauma overturns everything we thought we knew about how people respond to hardship.
The Oklahoma City bombing, intentional crashing of airliners on September 11, 2001, and anthrax attacks in the fall of 2001 have made Americans acutely aware of the impacts of terrorism. These events and continued threats of terrorism have raised questions about the impact on the psychological health of the nation and how well the public health infrastructure is able to meet the psychological needs that will likely result. Preparing for the Psychological Consequences of Terrorism highlights some of the critical issues in responding to the psychological needs that result from terrorism and provides possible options for intervention. The committee offers an example for a public health strategy that may serve as a base from which plans to prevent and respond to the psychological consequences of a variety of terrorism events can be formulated. The report includes recommendations for the training and education of service providers, ensuring appropriate guidelines for the protection of service providers, and developing public health surveillance for preevent, event, and postevent factors related to psychological consequences.
This timely, much-needed resource identifies gaps in our understanding of the effects of exposure to violence on children -- and sets a direction for future research to support interventions and violence prevention.;
There is abundant evidence showing a strong association between trauma exposure, psychotic symptoms, and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Early trauma exposure contributes to the formation of psychotic symptoms and the development of psychotic disorders or severe mental illnesses such as schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and treatment-refractory major depression. Furthermore, among persons with psychotic disorders, multiple traumatization over the lifetime is common, due to factors such as social stigma, the criminalization of severe mental illness, and increased vulnerability to interpersonal victimization. In addition to these factors is the traumatic nature of experiencing psychotic symptoms and coercive treatments such as involuntary hospitalization and being placed in seclusion or restraints. Not surprisingly, these high rates of trauma lead to high rates of PTSD in people with psychotic disorders, which are associated with more severe symptoms, worse functioning, and greater use of acute care services. In addition to the impact of trauma on the development of psychotic disorders and comorbid PTSD, traumatic experiences such as childhood sexual and physical abuse can shape the nature of prominent psychotic symptoms such as the content of auditory hallucinations and delusional beliefs. Additionally, traumatic experiences have been implicated in the role of ‘stress responsivity’ and increased risk for transition to psychosis in those identified as being at clinical high risk of developing psychosis. Finally, although the diagnostic criteria for PTSD primarily emphasize the effects of trauma on anxiety, avoidance, physiological over-arousal, and negative thoughts, it is well established that PTSD is frequently accompanied by psychotic symptoms such as hallucinations and delusions that cannot be attributed to another DSM-V Axis I disorder such as psychotic depression or schizophrenia. Understanding the contribution of traumatic experiences to the etiology of psychosis and other symptoms can inform the provision of cognitive behavioral therapy for psychosis, including the development of a shared formulation of the events leading up to the onset of the disorder, as well as other trauma-informed treatments that address distressing and disabling symptoms associated with trauma and psychosis. Until recently the trauma treatment needs of this population have been neglected, despite the high rates of trauma and PTSD in persons with psychotic disorders, and in spite of substantial gains made in the treatment of PTSD in the general population. Fortunately, progress in recent years has provided encouraging evidence that PTSD can be effectively treated in people with psychotic disorders using interventions adapted from PTSD treatments developed for the general population. In contrast to clinician fears about the untoward effects of trauma-focused treatments on persons with a psychotic disorder, research indicates that post-traumatic disorders can be safely treated, and that participants frequently experience symptom relief and improved functioning. There is a need to develop a better understanding of the interface between trauma, psychosis, and post-traumatic disorder. This Frontiers Research Topic is devoted to research addressing this interface.
Each year, child protective services receive reports of child abuse and neglect involving six million children, and many more go unreported. The long-term human and fiscal consequences of child abuse and neglect are not relegated to the victims themselves-they also impact their families, future relationships, and society. In 1993, the National Research Council (NRC) issued the report, Under-standing Child Abuse and Neglect, which provided an overview of the research on child abuse and neglect. New Directions in Child Abuse and Neglect Research updates the 1993 report and provides new recommendations to respond to this public health challenge. According to this report, while there has been great progress in child abuse and neglect research, a coordinated, national research infrastructure with high-level federal support needs to be established and implemented immediately. New Directions in Child Abuse and Neglect Research recommends an actionable framework to guide and support future child abuse and neglect research. This report calls for a comprehensive, multidisciplinary approach to child abuse and neglect research that examines factors related to both children and adults across physical, mental, and behavioral health domains-including those in child welfare, economic support, criminal justice, education, and health care systems-and assesses the needs of a variety of subpopulations. It should also clarify the causal pathways related to child abuse and neglect and, more importantly, assess efforts to interrupt these pathways. New Directions in Child Abuse and Neglect Research identifies four areas to look to in developing a coordinated research enterprise: a national strategic plan, a national surveillance system, a new generation of researchers, and changes in the federal and state programmatic and policy response.
In the United States, some populations suffer from far greater disparities in health than others. Those disparities are caused not only by fundamental differences in health status across segments of the population, but also because of inequities in factors that impact health status, so-called determinants of health. Only part of an individual's health status depends on his or her behavior and choice; community-wide problems like poverty, unemployment, poor education, inadequate housing, poor public transportation, interpersonal violence, and decaying neighborhoods also contribute to health inequities, as well as the historic and ongoing interplay of structures, policies, and norms that shape lives. When these factors are not optimal in a community, it does not mean they are intractable: such inequities can be mitigated by social policies that can shape health in powerful ways. Communities in Action: Pathways to Health Equity seeks to delineate the causes of and the solutions to health inequities in the United States. This report focuses on what communities can do to promote health equity, what actions are needed by the many and varied stakeholders that are part of communities or support them, as well as the root causes and structural barriers that need to be overcome.
