Adverse childhood experiences (ACEs), including various types of abuse and other forms of household dysfunction (i.e. witnessing domestic violence, parental substance abuse, etc.), have been consistently linked to increased rates of health risk...
You've all experienced it. That heady feeling, that remember-to-breathe moment, that wide-eyed amazement at the ideas and words that hit your own bulls-eye of the reasons why you're devoting your life's work to preventing child maltreatment and...
This is an edited version of a comment I added to a blog post by Robert Wood Johnson Foundation CEO Risa Lavizzo-Mourey about a "Culture of Health". In a culture of health, one root of the vision begins in public schools. [Associated Press photo] Last week, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation CEO Risa Lavizzo-Mourey shared a vision for "A Culture of Health". It's a vision that requires a "seismic shift" in perspective and values, to be built grassroots from the ground up, she...
[Olimpia Zagnoli illustration] ...the ideology of modern parenting...can lead to unnecessary feelings of guilt and shame, for it ignores an inconvenient truth: that many women and men experience significant psychological distress in response to becoming a parent and that much of this distress isn’t caused by a hormonal epiphenomenon of the birth process. It is driven instead in large measure by the objectively bleak circumstances new parents often face.
Children in Connecticut have been dying of abuse or neglect at an alarming rate over the last 18 months — pushing officials to look for ways to identify and act on less-serious injuries earlier in the lives of at-risk children. One effort would...
We have only to look at official crime statistics to be reminded of the status quo: Last year, Tennessee ranked No. 6 among states for highest rate of murder of women in domestic violence situations. The Tennessee Bureau of Investigation reports...
According to a survey from LifeWay Research which interviewed 1,000 senior pastors of Protestant churches in the U.S., pastors rarely include the topics of domestic and sexual violence in their sermons. Co-sponsored by the Christian...
[Photo: SC Department of Mental Health] When emergency room patients are deemed “a danger to themselves or others,” every state requires hospitals to hold them until a psychiatrist conducts a face-to-face evaluation to decide whether it is safe to let them leave. In rural hospitals across the country, it can take days for a psychiatrist to show up and perform the exam. Five years ago, rural hospitals in South Carolina illustrated the problem. On a typical morning, more than...
Photo credit: Thomas Leuthard, Flickr The connection between prostitution and a history of childhood sexual abuse is staggering. Some studies have found that 70 percent of female prostitutes were sexually abused as children; others peg the...
Photo credit: Caroline, Flickr The other day, a mother of a 15-month-old walked into Andrew Garner’s office, oozing frustration. “Is it normal for them to never sit still?” she asked. Garner, a pediatrician in Westlake, Ohio,...
Photo credit: Matteo Angelino, Flickr Socioeconomic adversity during childhood increases the likelihood of both depression and higher body mass index (BMI) in early adolescence, which can worsen and lead to illness for young adults,...
A 3‐D model of a brain in the author's study. Credit: Mike Basher. In this Atlantic feature story, neuroscientist and psychiatrist Nancy Andreasen writes about studying creativity and whether that is at all influenced by...
Chicago Bears wide receiver Brandon Marshall. Credit: Mike DiNovo/USA TODAY Sports. Following his [borderline personality disorder] diagnosis three years ago, Marshall, now 30 and a Pro Bowl wide receiver for the Chicago Bears, set an ambitious goal: become for mental health what Magic Johnson is for HIV. He wants to make an off-limits subject commonplace. He's reaching out to players who might need help, teaming with mental health organizations through his charity and raising awareness...
Former congressman Patrick Kennedy: "We have a wasteland of people who have died and been disabled because of inadequate care." Photo Credit: H. Darr Beiser, USA TODAY This lengthy USA TODAY feature looks at mental illness in America from...
In between dispensing advice on breast-feeding and immunizations, doctors will tell parents to read aloud to their infants from birth, under a new policy that the American Academy of Pediatrics will announce on Tuesday. With the increased recognition...