Childhood Trauma as a Public Health Issue

In this chapter, we review the public health impact of childhood trauma and its adverse consequences on mental health, physical health, academic and socioeconomic outcomes, and interpersonal functioning. We focus on interpersonal forms of trauma given their particularly consequential influences on a range of developmental processes and risk for mental health problems. Decades of epidemiological studies demonstrate that childhood trauma is common, particularly among children from economically disadvantaged families and racial and ethnic minority groups. We therefore discuss comprehensive public health responses to prevent childhood trauma and its consequences, including in global and under-resourced settings. Special attention is dedicated to emerging innovative approaches to delivering mental health services, such as task sharing and the development of brief and scalable intervention prevention programs, that may be leveraged to identify children who have experienced trauma and deliver scalable interventions to prevent the emergence of mental health problems and other adverse developmental consequences.