CLEVELAND, Ohio — Dr. Nadine Burke Harris first noticed the effects of toxic stress more than a decade ago among the many children with behavioral and learning issues she treated in San Francisco’s low-income Bayview-Hunter’s Point neighborhood, the pediatrician and current California Surgeon General this morning told a standing-room only crowd attending University Hospitals’ Arthur and Edwina Burns endowed lecture in diversity.
While the most common diagnosis for kids with attention and behavior issues is Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, or ADHD, Burke Harris found that many of the kids who might normally receive this label had experienced high levels of adverse childhood experiences, or ACEs, from extreme poverty and exposure to violence, to neglect or living with a parent who suffered from addiction to drugs or alcohol.
“For me, that really lit a spark and it got me diving into the research about how these experiences of adversity were affecting the development of my patients’ brains and bodies,” Burke Harris said.
[For more on this story by Brie Zeltner, go to https://www.cleveland.com/metr...rsity-hospitals.html]
Comments (0)