2- Understanding Trauma Part 1
I often find myself frustrated with the fact that most people don’t understand trauma and how it impacts people. Therefore, I’ve decided to use this article to give an overview of trauma and identify, what I believe to be, critical pieces that every person should know and be familiar with in order to understand what is really going on in our communities. I personally feel that trauma is the missing piece in many people’s opinions and perspectives simply because they don’t know about the research that explains much of what we see happening every day.
For my friends and colleagues that are very familiar with trauma- this is not an all-encompassing explanation. This is the basics for those not in our network. My hope from this article is to give information that is critical to the formation of perspectives because it’s what I feel is lacking in many opinions around racism, the relationship between police and Black communities, and our criminal justice system.
Without further ado, I’m going to start with ACES… ACES, or Adverse Childhood Experiences, were first discovered through a research study in 1998. The ACES study is one of the most important studies for our generation in my opinion. I’m not going to explain the study in depth, but you can read all about it on the CDC website here or on Acestoohigh.com. The part of this study I want to share is the findings and what they revealed about trauma.
Essentially, through survey, the study found that certain traumatic events (referred to as ACES) that occurred during childhood in your household will influence your emotional and physical health as you get older. In addition, the more traumatic events a child is exposed to, the greater the risk for emotional and physical health problems, including early death. When the study first came out in 1998, 10 ACES or traumatic experiences were identified- all of which were things that happened in the home. Since then, ACES have expanded to encompass trauma at the community level. These expanded ACES include things like living in foster care, parental incarceration, unsafe neighborhoods, racism, and witnessing violence. If this is new to you, please view the 10 original ACES and take your test here. You can find the expanded community level ACE test here.
SO… What you need to know about these scores is that the higher the score, the higher the risk for significant health problems. The physical and mental health problems tied to ACES include diabetes, heart disease, cancer, stroke, COPD, obesity, depression, suicide attempts, broken bones and STDs. ACES are also tied with alcoholism, drug use, smoking, lack of physical activity, and missing work. An ACE score of 4 or more results in having multiple risk factors for different diseases, and a score of 6 or more results in a 20-year decrease in life expectancy. Think about that for a minute…I’m about to break it down even more.
Minnesota conducted an ACES study in 2011 and found that 19% of Black Minnesotans and 23% of Native American Minnesotans had 5 or more ACES. White Minnesotans were at 7% for 5 or more ACES. The point I’m making here is not to tell you a bunch of data, but it is to understand the bigger picture. These findings tell us that traumatic experiences are impacting communities of color at rates that are not even comparable to white communities. This is why we must look at the history of Black and Native Americans in order to understand what is really going on.
Most of us know that the history of Black Americans and Native Americans is filled with trauma, however, it’s critical to also know that trauma doesn’t disappear, it must be dealt with appropriately. It has been proven through research that trauma impacts our DNA and gets passed on to the next generation through what’s called Epigenetics. You can read more about it here. Epigenetics shows us that trauma and the way it impacts each person can be marked in our DNA. This includes behavior and mental health issues that are unresolved. The good news is that we can also change our DNA if the trauma and its effects are dealt with and healed.
Now that I’ve explained some elements of trauma, I want to pull some thoughts together to the present. First off, since we know Black and Native Americans in Minnesota had a significantly higher likelihood of 5 or more ACES, we can then expect the ACE health and behavior risks to be more prevalent in these communities, which it is. I encourage you to deeply reflect on this as it applies to the prevalence of health problems across race. Even with life expectancy. If 6 or more ACES can take 20 years from a person’s life, think about that as it relates to the life expectancy of Black men compared to white men. Nearly all the ACE outcomes are occurring at higher rates for Black and Native Communities.
When you connect the dots back to the root it leads to the fact that both Black and Native Communities have experienced severe trauma here in America in past generations and it has not been healed. On top of it many people hold these communities to the same standards in expectations but give little to know support or recognition of what they are still experiencing as a result of the past and in the present. This lack of acknowledgement or accountability plays a big part in our current racial and political divides. If there is no acknowledgment that there is a problem, then there surely won’t be any support to make it right. Hence why tensions, disparities, poverty, and racism continue.
I know this was a lot of information to absorb and I still have much to share on trauma. I’ve decided to break this topic into multiple posts because it is important information to retain and understand. Just to give you an idea of what more will come from this topic I will explain how ACES disrupt neurodevelopment and can lead to social, emotional and cognitive impairment. I will also explain how all this information plays into the relationship between police and Black communities.
I hope you find this information valuable. I've included this lovely info-graphic below that displays some of the information I referenced in my post. I welcome questions or comments!
