Certain negative environmental influences take a huge toll on the psychological well-being of low income African-Americans and Latinos.
The effects of these influences are cumulative, and frequent exposure leads to PTSD, anxiety, and depressive symptoms in adulthood.
“The costs to society of these life experiences are substantial,” said researcher Hector Myers, formerly of UCLA, now Vanderbilt University. “We know there is a poorer overall quality of life, a loss of productivity, greater social dependency, disability, health and mental health care costs, and early mortality as a result of repeated experiences of stress and trauma.”
The Toll of Violence and Discrimination
The top five environmental influences, or domains, contributing to mental health problems were determined by researchers. They were subsequently used to develop a clinical assessment tool called LADS, or Life Adversities Screener.
The five influences or domains are:
- The experience of ethnic, racial, or gender/sexual orientation discrimination.
- Having a history of sexual abuse.
- A family/intimate partner history of violence.
- A history of violence in an individual’s community.
- Experiencing chronic fear/anxiety of being physically harmed or killed.
Few individuals struggling with psychological distress from discrimination or violence are ever identified and helped. This treatment deficit prompted the creation of the LADS.
Assessing Trauma Burden
The Life Adversities Screener is a series of questions, asked by health care providers, measuring the effects of adversity on individuals. LADS is easy to use and designed to gather information typically missed by other screening tools.
“...LADS could be effective as a screening tool to identify ethnic and racial minority individuals in primary care settings who have a high trauma burden, and who need more extensive evaluation,” said LADS developer Honghu Liu. “This could optimize affordable care as it strives to improve prevention of mental health problems.”
After identifying people with a high trauma burden the next step is offering them the opportunity to acquire coping skills that effectively relieve distress.
Source: Science Daily
Photo credit: John Nakamura Remy