“Trauma is very common. Trauma is very prevalent. Knowing that, giving everyone the grace of understanding that their reactions may be based on something we can’t see is important for our health outcomes.”
Last Thursday, USC Campus Health hosted an online event to discuss preventive and mitigation measures on the health impact of trauma using the 2021 book “What Happened To You? Conversations on Trauma, Resilience, and Healing” by psychiatrist Bruce D. Perry and Oprah Winfrey. Caused by severe, prolonged and repetitive stress, trauma makes our brain more vulnerable to fear, disrupting our emotional regulation and our capacity to retain information. This public health issue has affected 70% of adults in America at least once in their lifetime, including students.
Dr. Deirdre Logan, the chair of the trauma-informed care committee of USC Student Health, and Dr. Michelle Dexter, Counseling and Mental Health Services clinician and instructor of “The Science and Practice of Building Resilience” undergraduate course at USC, started the webinar by illustrating the negative effects of trauma, specifically adverse childhood events (ACEs), on community health. Originally ACEs were defined as incidents that cause distress to an individual before the age of 18. The acronym now extends to the categories of community adverse events, such as social inequality, and climate adverse events like tornadoes and floods. Dr. Logan presented research showing that an individual with an ACEs score higher than four correlates with an increased risk of different health outcomes, including smoking (twice as likely), substance abuse (seven times as likely), and suicide (1200% increase): this is the case for 16% to 17% of people in America.
“We’re learning more every day about how adverse events in early childhood can have lasting impacts on health, Dr. Logan said. ”Because ACEs are very common, we’re focused on how individuals can become more trauma-aware, and how institutions can become more trauma-informed in their practices.”
This is why it’s important to be trauma-informed: being able to understand, recognize and respond to effects of trauma on both well-being and behavior, according to Dr. Dexter. By fostering connection, accountability, safety, respect, cultural sensitivity, compassion and support, “we can all take an active role in healing ourselves and others,” she said in the session. Dr. Dexter also uses a trauma-informed approach in her teaching by encouraging connections with professors, providing opportunities for students to work together and build a community, promoting a growth mindset, and asking for regular feedback.
USC is a critical venue for trauma education. In 2022, a pilot study with 120 USC students found that more than 62% of the sample had an ACEs score of four or higher. Moreover, as noted by Dr. Dexter, traumatized college students typically have a harder time adjusting to campus life, higher rates of depression, anxiety, PTSD, suicidal ideation and substance abuse. This emphasizes how crucial it is for USC to continue building environments that foster resilience.
Contrary to popular belief, resilience is not the ability to cope with adversities like discrimination, harassment, and abuse. As explained during the webinar, resilient individuals look for support to mitigate rollercoaster emotions, for instance, through relationships, mindfulness practices, mental health care, quality sleep, healthy nutrition, and physical activity; by contrast, people who lack resilience are more prone to soothe their anxieties with harmful habits. The webinar shows that knowing the subtle difference between surviving and thriving can help manage real health outcomes, as well as prevent them.
The event was open to professional and laypeople, and participants expressed wide support for ACEs screening. In the state of California, 35,000 providers have received ACEs-aware screening or training, and over 2 million people have been screened for ACEs. In the future, Dr. Logan and Dr. Dexter aim to do ACEs screening with an expanded questionnaire at USC; in the meantime, Dr. Logan pointed to the digital Safe Spaces training, which helps certified adults to understand the signs of a person who potentially has an experience of trauma. “Having a community-wide discussion is just one of the steps Campus Health is taking in bringing a light onto understanding toxic stress, and how it may impact the educational experience for students,” she said. Anyone interested in the discussion can refer to the recording of the webinar, as well as the event’s resources and references page, which are publicly available.