Blog

Scholars know so much about the importance of early experience--you should too! Every animal has a nest, including humans. What does the nest look like and why does it matter? A 2010 symposium brought together anthropologists, clinical, developmental and neuro-scientists to discuss this question in light of evolution and human development. This is necessarily an interdisciplinary area of study because we have to know our history as social mammals, what optimizes our development in our...

Framed by the story of Mario Woods' grieving mother, this California Report article includes perspectives from Palo Alto pediatrician Rhea Boyd and community leaders in San Francisco and Alameda counties, on how police violence contributes to traumatization. What is the public health solution?

I have worked at helping to shape policy at the local, state and national levels. I have testified before city councils, state legislatures and congress. I’ve testified primarily about the structural externals that hobble so many Americans , millions of whom are ground down by poverty, poor schools, ill health, lack of access to child care and pre-school education and constant exposure to fear and instability in violence-ridden neighborhoods. I have helped to craft and pass legislation. Yes,...

There’s no one right way to make sense of a tumultuous year, but at least maps offer one kind of insight: Even in a digitally connected world, geography is still, frequently, destiny. From the effects of DACA elimination , to Hurricane Harvey’s impact on Houston , to Uber’s wild year , CityLab has reported many of the year’s top stories through the lens of physical place. As a special edition of MapLab , CityLab’s biweekly maps newsletter (sign up here ), I looked at some of 2017’s big...

Anthropologist Tina Lee immersed herself in the exotic culture of a child welfare agency, its folkways, “clients,” employees and contractors. She has returned with an eye-opening report. Anthropologists describe, not prescribe. Their expeditions yield close-up views of the rituals and radically different practices of far-away societies. With their help, we can reflect: Would we like to live like the Melanesians? How about the hunter-gatherer lifestyle? The tribes that Professor Lee studied...

Nearly one in 10 children in the United States are at risk of being removed from their home by a child welfare agency simply because their parent has a disability. In October, a lawsuit was filed on behalf of five parents with disabilities who had their children removed by New York's Administration for Children's Services, alleging widespread discrimination. What happened to these families is not unique or uncommon; rather, their tragic experiences are part of a national phenomenon: Parents...

Urban designers thus have a significant role to play in lowering these rates of mental illness, and the data on how nature affects our brains is central to changing the ways we design. As depression is the world’s biggest cause of disability , we cannot afford to ignore the impact of public environments on mental health. Multiple stressors associated with city living have been shown to increase activity in the parts of the brain corresponding to the ‘flight or fight’ response. How does...

Empathy is when we reach our hearts out to others and put ourselves in their shoes. However, being an empath goes even farther. Like many of my patients and myself, empaths are people who’re high on the empathic spectrum and actually feel what is happening in others in their own bodies. As a result, empaths can have incredible compassion for people–but they often get exhausted from feeling “too much” unless they develop strategies to safeguard their sensitivities and develop healthy...

I am often asked, "What is data-driven childhood trauma prevention work?" It's a very important question. As the developer of our non-profit's Resilience Leaders program, we are supporting communities in implementing a data-driven, cross-sector and systemic strategy for the prevention of trauma and maltreatment. We have just published the book Anna, Age Eight to provide to professionals from behavioral health care, public health, child welfare, education, youth development and early...

One of the more radical transformations in public education today begins with a simple greeting each morning among second-graders. “Good morning, Mahlet,” says one student to another at McMicken Heights Elementary School in SeaTac, Washington. “Good morning, Liliana,” the second student responds. The exercise continues briskly until all 23 students seated in a circle have been recognized; then the children stand and greet three classmates each with handshakes and solid eye contact. Next, a...

Last year I worked undercover at a temp agency in Los Angeles. While I took the assignment for an article I was working on, I’d also been unemployed for over a year. It seemed I was in that middling space of over-qualified for entry-level jobs, under-qualified for the jobs I most desired, and aged out or irrelevant as a labor union organizer, where I’d gained the bulk of my work experience. One altered resume later I joined a temp agency and became the biggest ghost of them all, a member of...

Everyone loves their children but not everyone understands that the way we care for the youngest among us will have an impact on our society for years to come. With that reality in mind, a new program run by Headway Emotional Health Services , a Twin Cities-based mental health provider for families, aims to improve the parenting skills of at-risk American Indian parents by helping them learn to give their infant-to-preschool-aged children the support they need to be prepared for success...