Tagged With "Pandemic Killing So Many Black Americans"
Blog Post
Four Ways to Integrate a Structural Racism Lens into Neighborhood Health Research [howhousingmatters.org]
Photo: Joao Victor Bolan/Shutterstock Structural racism refers to the institutional practices, policies, and norms that shape opportunity and assign value based on race, including the macro-level forces that often appear race-neutral but maintain existing racial hierarchies. In health disparities research, structural racism is often represented as neighborhood disadvantage or racial residential segregation, but some scholars argue that this approach fails to acknowledge structural racism as...
Blog Post
Got Your ACE, Resilience Scores?
What's Your ACE Score? (and Your Resilience Score?) There are 10 types of childhood trauma measured in the ACE Study. Five are personal -- physical abuse, verbal abuse, sexual abuse, physical neglect, and emotional neglect. Five are related to other family members: a parent who's an alcoholic, a mother who's a victim of domestic violence, a family member in jail, a family member diagnosed with a mental illness, and the disappearance of a parent through divorce, death or abandonment. Each...
Blog Post
How Stable, Affordable Housing Can Help Tackle Food Insecurity
by Kimberly Burrowes Farmers’ markets, community gardens, and fruit stands provide local residents access to healthy, affordable food in many neighborhoods. In areas with fewer grocery stores, farmers’ markets can help close the food access gap. But they don’t serve every neighborhood, and today, one in eight Americans experiences food insecurity —and they’re primarily from low-income households and communities of color. Although physical and mental health, family structure, and economic...
Blog Post
League of Women Voters Hot Topics: Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs)
League of Women Voters Orange County - Hot Topics Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs): The Biggest Public Health Crisis You've Never Heard of March 11th, 2020 11:00 am - 1:00 pm Sorosis Club: 501 E. Livingston St., Orlando, FL 32801 ACEs are traumatic experiences that occur in childhood (0-17 years) and are now scientifically linked to changes in the brain that lead to an astounding increase in a lifetime of poor life outcomes. Tragic outcomes include suicide, chronic diseases (cancer/heart...
Blog Post
Make it count: How Census 2020 benefits the Tampa Bay Area [83Degrees]
The importance of the Census being accurate is much greater than just gathering a mathematical abstract of how many people live in a particular city. Knowing how many people reside within particular geographical areas, including blocks, groups of blocks, zip codes, and various corners of the city, helps apportion funding for everything from schools and senior services to roads and police coverage.
Blog Post
NEMOURS CEO LARRY MOSS: LET'S INVEST MORE IN KIDS' HEALTH [HealthLeaders]
Medical care represents only a fraction of what we should consider when we think about health, Moss said. The rest includes things like social determinants of health, in their various forms, including education, literacy, housing, safety, freedom from adverse childhood experiences, and other social factors.
Blog Post
Press Release: Central Florida’s Working Families Continue to Struggle - New United Way ALICE Report Reveals 46% of Households Fail to Cover Basic Needs [Heart of Florida United Way News]
Photo: ALICE Florida Report 2018/ United Way Orlando, Fla. (February 6, 2019) – Heart of Florida United Way announced that more than 350,000 households in Central Florida struggle to afford basic necessities such as housing, food, transportation, health care and child care, according to the 2018 ALICE Report. Statewide, 46% of households face the same financial challenges. In Central Florida, the number of low-income workers struggling to cover essentials grew by approximately 1.1 percent...
Blog Post
Press Release: Milwaukee County Leaders Proclaim Racism is a Public Health Crisis [Urban Milwaukee]
Following the lead from the Wisconsin Public Health Association, Milwaukee County Executive Chris Abele and County Board Vice Chairwoman Marcelia Nicholson, proclaim racism is a public health crisis, and are actively taking steps to achieve racial equity throughout Milwaukee County.
Blog Post
Preventing ACEs: Getting to the Root of Community Trauma [CLASP]
By Whitney Bunts and Kayla Tawa Recently the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) published “Preventing Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs): Leveraging the Best Available Evidence.” The CDC defines ACEs as “traumatic events that occur in childhood (0-17 years) such as experiencing violence, abuse, or neglect.” The report explains the prevalence of ACEs and provides a number of strategies to prevent children from experiencing them. The CDC’s strategies align with much of CLASP’s...
Blog Post
Resilience, Race, and Preschool Expulsion [Devereux]
When Dr. Walter Gilliam’s groundbreaking national study was released, exposing expulsion rates in state preschool programs, the findings asked us to explore not only the way we meet the social and emotional needs of young children, but how our implicit bias plays a role. The data showed that 4-year-olds are 50% more likely to be expelled than 3-year-olds, Black preschoolers are 3.6 times as likely as White preschoolers to be expelled, and boys are more than four times as likely as girls to...
Blog Post
Sheltering in Place: ACEs-Informed Tips for Self-Care During a Pandemic
Millions of lives have been affected in unprecedented ways by the Coronavirus (COVID-19). We are all grappling with uncertainty—our daily routines interrupted, not knowing what is to come. For those of us who have Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs), these times can be particularly distressing. At the Center for Youth Wellness (CYW), we know that childhood trauma can have a significant impact on an individual’s health and well-being – both physiologically and psychologically. Since the...
Blog Post
Talking to Children about Tragedy & Other News Events [healthychildren.org]
By Healthy Children, American Academy of Pediatrics, July 2019 After any disaster, parents and other adults struggle with what they should say and share with children and what not to say or share with them. The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) encourages parents, teachers, child care providers, and others who work closely with children to filter information about the crisis and present it in a way that their child can accommodate, adjust to, and cope with. No matter what age or...
Blog Post
The Black Community, COVID-19 & Trauma [sdvoice.com]
By Latanya West, San Diego Voice, May 15, 2020 In January 2019, Governor Gavin Newsom appointed Dr. Nadine Burke Harris as California’s first-ever Surgeon General. An award-winning physician, researcher and advocate, Dr. Burke Harris’ career has been dedicated to serving vulnerable communities and combating the root causes of health disparities. Her work is equally dedicated to changing the way our society responds to one of the most serious, expensive and widespread public health crises of...
Blog Post
The Greatest White Privilege Is Life Itself: Like so many other black men in America, Elijah Cummings died too young [The Atlantic]
Ibram X. Kendi Director of the Antiracist Research and Policy Center at American University I had a 30-minute ride to the train station. I nestled into my seat, opened my phone, and saw that Representative Elijah Cummings had passed away. I gasped and covered my mouth. The driver peeked at me in his rear-view mirror. He saw me shaking my head and whispering what many Americans whispered last Thursday: He was only 68 . My mind turned to my father, whom I had just left at a hotel in Princeton,...
Blog Post
The Impact of Racism on Children’s Health [New York Times]
A new statement from the American Academy of Pediatrics looks at the effects of racism on children’s development, starting in the womb. This month the American Academy of Pediatrics put out its first policy statement on how racism affects the health and development of children and adolescents . “Racism is a significant social determinant of health clearly prevalent in our society now,” said Dr. Maria Trent, a professor of pediatrics at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, who was one of the...
Blog Post
The Tiny Cell that Connects our Physical and Mental Health, and Solves a Decades-old Mystery of Why Toxic Stress Leads to Brain Changes that Spark Depression, Anxiety
More than a decade ago, I was diagnosed with several autoimmune diseases, one after another, including Guillain-Barré syndrome , which left me paralyzed twice while raising two young children. All told I spent six years in and out of bed and hospitals, learning, between crises, to use a cane or walker to navigate life as a working-mother-with-chronic-illness. My immune system was repeatedly and mistakenly attacking my body, causing the nerves in my arms, legs, and those I needed to swallow...
Blog Post
Tools and how to use them is focus of second webinar on Community Resiliency Model, May 14, 2020
The second of two free Community Resiliency (CRM) webinars with Elaine Miller-Karas , key creator of the CRM, will be held Thursday, May 14, from 11 a.m. - 12:30 p.m. ET, (10 a.m. CT; 9 a.m. MT, and 8 a.m. PT) and will include the practical application of tools of the model. CRM is an ACEs science-based biological model for helping individuals become emotionally regulated during natural disasters and other dysregulating times. Miller-Karas will be joined by CRM trainers from Wilmington, NC:...
Blog Post
"Turning big waves into small ripples" campaign
My “turn big waves into small ripples” campaign focuses on creating a supportive high school culture with norms and social constructs that encourage students to cope with stressors and positively expressing their emotions. By encouraging a trauma-informed community within the school setting, students will be better prepared to cope with traumas and stressors post-graduation. They will also be capable of passing on this information to their parents, siblings, peers, and future generations.
Blog Post
Upates, good news, recommendation and link to register for Making Meaningful Change: Addressing ACEs through Public Policy Webinar February 18
The World Health Organization has compiled a recent meta-analysis about how much ACEs cost us Millions of adults across Europe and north America live with a legacy of ACEs. Their findings suggest that a 10% reduction in ACE prevalence could equate to annual savings of $105 billion. Programs to prevent ACEs and moderate their effects are available. Rebalancing expenditure towards ensuring safe and nurturing childhoods would be economically beneficial and relieve pressures on health-care...
Blog Post
Webinar Oct. 17 — Integrating ACEs science in pediatrics: Early adopters share lessons from the field
An ACEs Connection webinar co-sponsored with 4 CA In 2017, California became the first state in the country to pass a law supporting universal screening for adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) in the 5.3 million children in the state’s Medicaid program. As clinicians around California await the state’s announcement of what this new policy will entail, many are wondering what it takes to integrate ACEs science in a pediatric practice. Meet Drs. Deirdre Bernard-Pearl, R.J. Gillespie and...
Blog Post
Whole People Series & Study Guide (www.pbs.org)
There's a fantastic five-part series, Whole People , done by PBS, " spotlighting the impact of Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACES) through personal and community stories. It explores the long-term costs to personal well-being and our society. While much work needs to be done, there are many innovative developments to prevent and treat ACES. We all play a role in becoming a whole people." It's amazing. The five topics covered are as follows: Childhood Trauma Healing Communities A New...
Blog Post
Why Is the Pandemic Killing So Many Black Americans [podcasts.apple.com]
By The Daily, The New York Times, May 20, 2020 Some have called the pandemic “the great equalizer.” But the coronavirus is killing black Americans at staggeringly higher rates than white Americans. Today, we explore why. Guest: Linda Villarosa, a writer for The New York Times Magazine covering racial health disparities, who spoke to Nicole Charles in New Orleans, La. about the death of her husband, Cornell Charles, known as Dickey. He was 51. For more information on today’s episode, visit...
Blog Post
2020 Census Could Lead To Worst Undercount Of Black, Latinx People In 30 Years [npr.org]
Hansi Lo Wang, NPR, June 4, 2019. Challenges threatening the upcoming 2020 census could risk more than 4 million people to be missing from next year's national head count, according to new projections by the Urban Institute . The nonpartisan think tank found that the danger of an inaccurate census could hit some of the country's most difficult-to-count populations the hardest. Based on the Urban Institute's analysis, the 2020 census could lead to the worst undercount of black and Latinx...
Blog Post
A Florida ACEs Tour
RADICAL GRACE – WHAT I LET GOD SEE AND ACCEPT IN ME ALSO BECOMES WHAT I CAN SEE AND ACCEPT IN MYSELF. AND EVEN MORE, IT BECOMES THAT WHEREBY I SEE EVERYTHING ELSE. ~ RICHARD ROHR For the past three months, I’ve been driving through various parts of Florida witnessing events and gatherings of communities committed to creating safe, loving, trauma informed, and trauma healing spaces. On Friday February 22nd, I was in Tarpon Springs, attending the monthly gathering of Robin Saeger’s...
Blog Post
ACEs & African Americans Community on ACEs Connection
ACEs Connection envisions a resilient world where ALL people thrive. We are an anti-racist organization committed to the pursuit of social justice. In our work to promote resilience and prevent and mitigate ACEs, we intentionally embrace and uplift people who have historically not had a seat at the table. ACEs Connection celebrates the voices and tells the stories of people who have been barred from decision-making and who have shouldered the burden of systemic and economic oppression as the...
Blog Post
ACEs Connection Central Florida Launches at First Annual Conference
Photo by James Encinas Raising yellow “Visions & Commitments” cards, 550 attendees at yesterday’s Creating a Resilient Community: From Trauma to Healing Conference pledged their enthusiastic support to create a more resilient Central Florida. The standing-room-only crowd heard Dr. Vincent Felitti deliver a morning keynote address detailing the findings of the CDC-Kaiser Permanente Adverse Childhood Experiences Study (ACE Study) . He also shared moving testimonials of people who are...
Blog Post
ACEs Connection “Map the Movement” now includes an up-to-date section on laws and resolutions
Photo credit: Texasarchitects.org An updated map of laws and resolutions addressing ACEs science and trauma-informed policies is now available in the “Laws and Resolutions” section of Map the Movement (you can also find "Map the Movement" on the navigation bar on the ACEs Connection home page). The earliest law on the map was passed in the state of Washington in 2011, creating an ACEs science public-private partnership. The data base of the National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL) is...
Blog Post
ACEs Connection's Inclusion Tool makes sure nobody's left out
We developed ACEs Connection's Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Tool — called the Inclusion Tool, for short — to ensure that ACEs initiatives across the world focus on being inclusive when forming a steering committee, recruiting leaders, providing education about ACEs science, recruiting members, or providing resources and services within their communities. The more inclusive your ACEs initiative is, the more diverse it will be, giving your initiative a real shot at achieving equity and...
Blog Post
All Over the Map: A Baseline Analysis of the incidence of Childhood Trauma and the Implementation of Trauma-Informed Care in Florida [UF Lastinger Center for Learning]
All Over the Map "... In summary, the State of Florida is at an inflection point. “All over the map” is a phrase that comes to mind in describing the disparate picture across counties both in the incidence of adverse childhood events as well as the implementation of trauma-informed care programming. The analysis and recommendations within this report were developed to inform discussions on effective policy and practice considerations that will ultimately reduce the incidence of these...
Blog Post
Childhood trauma in the classroom [ACER]
A child with 4 or more ACEs is 32x more likely to misbehave in class. Mollie Tobin outlines research from neuroscience, psychology and education to highlight new understandings in childhood trauma research, and explores how this can be applied in the classroom. There is a misconception that children are more resilient than adults to the effects of trauma and will ‘outgrow’ traumatic experiences (Lieberman & Knorr, 2007). However, new understandings in developmental and neuroscience...
Blog Post
'Clear link' between childhood trauma and substance abuse, addiction doctor says [Johnson City Press]
Almost half of all American children have experienced at least some form of childhood trauma. Many of these adverse childhood experiences, or ACEs, can be tied back to drug and substance abuse, but their impact may be more widespread than many perceive. In Tennessee, an estimated 49% of children have at least one adverse childhood experience, and 24.1% have at least two. Nationally, those numbers sit at 45% and 20.5%, respectively. Children with ACEs, such as neglect, physical and sexual...
Blog Post
COMMEMORATING JULY PERRY AND ADDRESSING THE HISTORY OF RACIAL VIOLENCE IN CENTRAL FLORIDA [WMFE]
On Friday, an historic marker was unveiled outside the Orange County History Center in Orlando, commemorating July Perry. Perry was lynched during the Ocoee massacre in November 1920, a wave of violence in which up to 30 black residents of Ocoee were killed and the town was burned by a white mob. The marker is a reminder of the horror of what happened in Ocoee and the decades of racial terror that gripped the South. So what does this commemoration say about how far this community has come,...
Blog Post
Creating a "hospitable and accountable community" in my home
I have a confession to make. I am totally insecure about being my children’s “teacher” during this new COVID-19, stay at home, reality. That is hard for me to admit since I am a teacher and a peace practitioner by profession. Technically I have been training for this my whole life! Why do I feel so unprepared? When I told my 6 year old daughter she and her brother would be doing school from home with mommy and daddy she lit up with excitement and I could see the expectation in her eyes of...
Blog Post
Creating a Resilient Community: From Trauma to Healing
Welcome to ACEs Connection Central Florida! For a copy of the program for our conference, Creating a Resilient Community: From Trauma to Healing, please check the resources below.
Blog Post
Creating A Resilient Community: Panel Comments From Orlando Pediatrician, Dr. Candice Jones
Panelist Dr. Candice Jones at the Creating a Resilient Community: From Trauma to Healing Conference in Orlando, Florida on April 3rd, 2019. When I was asked to be a panelist for the community conference on healing from ACES and give my vision as a pediatrician on how to create a trauma-informed and resilient Central Florida, I was both honored and nervous. To be perfectly honest, I didn’t know about the science of toxic stress or the word, ACES until about 4 years ago. No, I didn’t learn...
Blog Post
Cultivating Deliberate Resilience During the Coronavirus Disease 2019 Pandemic [jamanetwork.com]
By Abby R. Rosenberg, JAMA Pediatrics, April 14, 2020 Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is affecting our health care community in unprecedented ways. As a pediatric oncologist who studies resilience in the context of illness, I started thinking about what this pandemic means for our professional resilience a few weeks ago, when the first US patient with fatal COVID-19 died in my home city of Seattle, Washington. Promoting resilience among health care workers and organizations starts with...
Blog Post
DACA Cancellation Could Impact 7,200 Florida Children [Health News Florida]
By DAYLINA MILLER Immigration advocates say 7,200 Florida children could be harmed if their parents lose Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals – or DACA - benefits that allow them to stay in the country. The United States Supreme Court will consider oral arguments Nov. 12 in a case brought by the Trump Administration that would take away those benefits. The Florida Chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics recently joined nearly three dozen organizations and leaders in asking the U.S.
Blog Post
Efforts to Reduce Black Maternal Mortality Complicated by COVID-19 [chcf.org]
By Xenia Shih Bion, California Health Care Foundation, April 20, 2020 Latoyha Young had a birth plan. She was going to have the baby in Sacramento with community doula Joy Dean by her side. Dean was funded by the county’s Black Child Legacy Campaign , which works to reduce the disproportional number of Black infant and child deaths in Sacramento. But in mid-March, when Young went into labor just as Governor Gavin Newsom ordered Californians to stay at home to avoid spreading the novel...
Blog Post
What Do Coronavirus Racial Disparities Look Like State by State [npr.org]
By Maria Godoy and Daniel Wood, National Public Radio, May 30, 2020 In April, New Orleans health officials realized their drive-through testing strategy for the coronavirus wasn't working. The reason? Census tract data revealed hot spots for the virus were located in predominantly low-income African-American neighborhoods where many residents lacked cars. In response, officials have changed their strategy, sending mobile testing vans to some of those areas, says Thomas LaVeist , dean of...
Blog Post
Self-Care Tips for Black People Who Are Struggling With This Very Painful Week [VICE]
by Rachel Miller , VICE.com, May 28 2020, 7:25pm. Friends, I don’t need to tell you that it’s been an especially hard few weeks for Black people in the United States. Breonna Taylor . Ahmaud Arbery . Chris Cooper . George Floyd . Tear-gassing the protesters who had the gall to be upset about a racist murder . All of this, during a time when Black people are disproportionately dying from the COVID-19 pandemic . It’s exhausting. Amid all this suffering, it can be hard to believe Audre Lorde...
Blog Post
The Trauma of Racism [Lisa Firestone, Ph.D., Psychology Today]
In the United States, many black people are born into a life of trauma. It is a trauma informed by a long history of brutal inhumanity, repression, violence, and injustice that continues to firmly grip black men and women each and every day. This trauma is not something any of us who have not had the experience of being black in America can speak to in the same way as someone who has. Yet, acknowledging this trauma and casting it in a broad, unflickering light is all of our responsibility.
Blog Post
Advancing Racial Equity Webinar Series [apha.org]
By Tia Taylor Williams, American Public Health Association, May 2020 Alarming disparities within the COVID-19 pandemic — such as higher hospitalizations and death rates among African Americans — are sadly predictable and highlight the urgent need to address the root causes of health inequities. APHA is hosting this four-part webinar series to give an in-depth look at racism as a driving force of the social determinants of health and equity. The series will explore efforts to address systems,...
Blog Post
Practice Slowing Down [Peace and Justice Institute at Valencia College]
Practice Slowing Down By Paul Chapman Valencia College, Professor of Humanities and Peace and Justice Institute Campus Coordinator Practice Slowing Down . Simply the speed of modern life can cause violent damage to the soul. By intentionally practicing slowing down, we strengthen our ability to extend nonviolence to others - and to ourselves. I use this principle every day, but with one small change in the wording. I prefer to use the term “peace”. By intentionally practicing slowing down,...
Blog Post
The Traumatic Impact of Racism on Young People and How to Talk About It [Dr. Kenneth Ginsburg]
Dr. Kenneth Ginsburg (Keynote speaker from the recent Creating a Resilient Community Conference) shared the excerpt from his book Reaching Teens titled The Traumatic Impact of Racism on Young People and How to Talk About It. This is a valuable resource for anyone interacting with youth and we are providing the excerpt as an attachment here for you to read and share. Also, Dr. Ginsburg will be coming back to our community (virtually) and you’ll be invited to his workshop. Look out for the...
Blog Post
Racism's Effect on Health, and the Heartbreak of Being a Black Parent Right Now: California's Surgeon General Speaks [kqed.org]
By KQED Science, KQED, June 14, 2020 The coronavirus pandemic and the recent killing of George Floyd have brought longstanding racial inequities into sharp focus. One of those disparities concerns the high rate of coronavirus transmission among people of color. To talk about the intersection of race and health, KQED's Brian Watt spoke last week with California Surgeon General Dr. Nadine Burke Harris, who is known for her pioneering work on the role that childhood stress and trauma play on...