Tagged With "Melissa Merrick"

In 2008 California was the first and only state to include the ACEs module in the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS) survey. The results were reported at a BRFSS conference in 2009. The state also included ACEs modules in...

What is the economic toll of ACEs in the State of California? $112.5 billion , said California Surgeon General Dr. Nadine Burke Harris to attendees of a webinar on February 26. That cost, she said, was one clear reason that she and other early adopters of screening for Adverse Childhood Experiences are urging their fellow health care providers in California to join the ACEs Aware Initiative that launched at the beginning of the year. In January, the State of California put screening...

By Melissa T. Merrick, Derek C. Ford, Katie A. Ports, et al., Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, November 5, 2019 Summary What is already known about this topic? Adverse childhood experiences are common and are associated with many poor health and life outcomes in adulthood. What is added by this report? Nearly 16% of adults in the study population reported four or more types of adverse childhood experiences, which were significantly associated with poorer health outcomes, health...

Wednesday, February 26, 2020 Noon – 1 p.m. Join a live webinar with: Dr. Nadine Burke Harris, MD, MPH – California Surgeon General Dr. Karen Mark, MD, PhD – Medical Director, Department of Health Care Services Dr. Melissa Merrick, PhD – President & CEO, Prevent Child Abuse America Dr. Brigid McCaw, MD, MPH, MS, FACP – Clinical Advisor, ACEs Aware The webinar will provide an overview of the ACEs Aware initiative; why providers should screen for Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs); the...

Join Mobilizing Action for Resilient Communities (MARC) for a series of free, short (45-minute) webinars with national leaders who will share some of their expertise and engage in dialogue with you on key strategies for creating just, healthy and resilient communities. Seats are limited, but recordings will be available after each session. Register at MARC.HealthFederation.org/BrownBag for the following sessions: Thursday, September 7 @ 1pm ET Melissa Merrick, PhD —Preventing Child Abuse and...

Photo caption and credit: Frank Kros, President of the Kros Learning Group, explains The N.E.A.R. Science to the group. The Maryland General Assembly held an event to inform them about how to make trauma informed policy decisions, and informing them about the consequences of Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACES). (Paul W. Gillespie) ____________________________________________________________ If adverse childhood experiences were eliminated entirely, rates of depression could plummet, heart...

Photo of Nadine Burke Harris by Liz Hafalia, The Chronicle _______________________________________________ Dr. Nadine Burke Harris, pediatrician and CEO of the Center For Youth Wellness, and Dr. Melissa Merrick, behavioral scientist at CDC’s National Center for Injury Prevention and Control and lead scientist on the ACE Study , will present at a session on today titled “Improving Children’s Chances by Combating Early Trauma" at the National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL) meeting in...

Room erupts in applause for the grandmother of witness William Kellibrew during July 11 House Oversight and Reform Committee hearing. The power of personal stories from witnesses and committee members fueled the July 11 hearing on childhood trauma in the House Oversight and Reform Committee* throughout the nearly four hours of often emotional and searing testimony and member questions and statements (Click here for 3:47 hour video). The hearing was organized into a two panels—testimony from...

Cissy's note: Melissa Merrick, PhD (pictured above), is a Senior Epidemiologist with the Surveillance Branch in the Division of Violence Prevention at CDC’s National Center for Injury Prevention and Control. She will be the keynote speaker at the Massachusetts Essentials for Childhood summit and share about new ACEs data (see below) about which populations have the highest levels of ACEs on average. An except from this article published on the JAMA Network can be found below. Please follow...

Yesterday, NPR published the following story: CLICK HERE "Childhood trauma causes serious health repercussions throughout life and is a public health issue that calls for concerted prevention efforts. That's the takeaway of a report published Tuesday from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Experiencing traumatic things as a child puts you at risk for lifelong health effects, according to a body of research. The CDC's new report confirms this, finding that Americans who had...

On June 16, 2020, the California Essentials for Childhood (EfC) Initiative held a webinar entitled, “Fostering HOPE (Healthy Outcomes from Positive Experiences) during COVID-19" and heard from special guest speakers, Drs. Robert Sege and Dina Burstein from the HOPE Project at Tufts Medical Center . Drs. Sege and Burstein presented research and data supporting the benefits and importance of Positive Childhood Experiences (PCEs), background on the HOPE Project, and the relevance to ACEs...

American Professional Society on the Abuse of Children (APSAC) in collaboration with the Academy on Violence and Abuse (AVA), the California Professional Society on the Abuse of Children (CAPSAC), and the Center for Innovation and Resources, Inc. (CIR), are working to support California's ACEsAware initiative. The CALIFORNIA ACES ACADEMY webinar series is one effort to promote and educate MediCal providers and others about the ACEsAware initiative throughout the state. To register for a...

A newly developed document titled “Adverse Childhood Experiences Data Report: Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS), 2011-2017: An Overview of Adverse Childhood Experiences in California” has just been released and can be found following link and attached to this blog post. The purpose of this resource is to report state and county prevalence of Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) in California; describe ACEs-related geographic and demographic disparities; and to offer details...

Californians have experienced an alarming epidemic of adverse childhood experiences. Between 2011 and 2017, 60 percent of Californians reported experiencing at least one type of childhood adversity; about 16 percent experienced four or more. People who experience four or more ACEs are 1.5 times as likely to have heart disease, 1.9 times as likely to have a stroke, and 3.2 times as likely to have asthma as people who have experienced no ACEs. (For more information about ACEs and ACEs science,...

The Campaign for Trauma-Informed Policy and Practice ( CTIPP ) is inviting individuals and organizations to express their support for a set of executive actions for the Biden-Harris Administration to take “to address trauma and build resilience throughout the country.” Most of these actions could be taken early in the Administration and would not require congressional action with the exception of some recommendations that could be included in a new stimulus package. The recommendations are...

The California Department of Public Health, Injury and Violence Prevention Branch (CDPH/IVPB) and the California Department of Social Services, Office of Child Abuse Prevention (CDSS/OCAP)’s, Essentials for Childhood (EfC) Initiative invites your participation in a webinar entitled, “Creating Compelling Messaging with California ACEs Data” on Wednesday, January 20 th from 10:30 AM – 12:00 PM. This webinar will feature presentations from Shaddai Martinez Cuestas, MPH, Strategic Communications...

The California Department of Public Health, Injury and Violence Prevention Branch (CDPH/IVPB) and the California Department of Social Services, Office of Child Abuse Prevention (CDSS/OCAP)’s, Essentials for Childhood (EfC) Initiative invites your participation in a webinar entitled, “Creating Compelling Messaging with ACEs Data” on Wednesday, January20 th from 10:30 AM – 12:00 PM. This webinar will feature presentations from Shaddai Martinez Cuestas, MPH, Strategic Communications Specialist...

On January 20, 2021 the California Department of Public Health, Injury and Violence Prevention Branch (CDPH/IVPB) and the C alifornia Department of Social Services, Office of Child Abuse Prevention (CDSS/OCAP)’s , Essentials for Childhood (EfC) Initiative hosted a webinar entitled, “Creating Compelling Messaging with ACEs Data”. This webinar featured presentations from Shaddai Martinez Cuestas, MPH, Strategic Communications Specialist at Berkeley Media Studies Group ; Donielle Prince, Ph.D,...

The California Essentials for Childhood Initiative is excited to share a newly developed attached, “Strategies for Trauma-Informed School Communities: Practices to Improve Resiliency in School-Aged Children and Address Adverse Childhood Experiences”. This new resource is intended to assist state and local public health programs, child-serving systems, non-profits, and philanthropic organizations in their efforts to educate about the need for trauma-informed school policies and practices that...

The Essentials for Childhood Initiative would like to share a new resources titled, “Creating Safe, Stable, Nurturing Relationships and Environments for Children.” This new resource is intended to elevate primary prevention strategies that support creating Safe, Stable, Nurturing Relationships and Environments (SSNR&Es) for children and highlight 2019 data from the Awareness, Commitment, and Norms Survey provided by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). This document was...

Child psychiatrist Dr. Bruce Perry and Oprah Winfrey have known each other for more than 30 years. Both are deeply interested in childhood trauma and healing. But it was following a 60 Minutes segment Winfrey did in 2018 on childhood trauma, for which she interviewed Perry, that the two decided to take their work together to the next level. They tapped Oprah’s star power and worldwide reach and Perry’s deep expertise in brain science to collaborate on a book project, the recently released,...