Journal
SOCIAL SCIENCE & MEDICINE
Volume 106, Issue -, Pages 128-136Publisher
PERGAMON-ELSEVIER SCIENCE LTD
DOI: 10.1016/j.socscimed.2014.01.043
Keywords
Historical trauma; Personal narratives; Public narratives; Resilience; Community health
Funding
- National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) [T32 DA 019426]
- Yale Building Interdisciplinary Research Careers in Women's Health (BIRCWH) [K12HD066065]
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Theories of historical trauma increasingly appear in the literature on individual and community health, especially in relation to racial and ethnic minority populations and groups that experience significant health disparities. As a consequence of this rapid growth, the literature on historical trauma comprises disparate terminology and research approaches. This critical review integrates this literature in order to specify theoretical mechanisms that explain how historical trauma influences the health of individuals and communities. We argue that historical trauma functions as a public narrative for particular groups or communities that connects present-day experiences and circumstances to the trauma so as to influence health. Treating historical trauma as a public narrative shifts the research discourse away from an exclusive search for past causal variables that influence health to identifying how present-day experiences, their corresponding narratives, and their health impacts are connected to public narratives of historical trauma for a particular group or community. We discuss how the connection between historical trauma and present-day experiences, related narratives, and health impacts may function as a source of present-day distress as well as resilience. (C) 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
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