Two speakers in UCSB Arts & Lectures program, pediatrician Dr. Nadine Burke Harris and columnist/writer/activist Nicholas Kristof, had a common thread in their presentations: the negative impact of poverty and the resulting traumas on health and wellbeing. Dr. Harris has been a pioneer in the treatment of toxic stress in children and Mr. Kristof a crusader for human rights around the world. After listening to the good doctor’s explanation about how violence, emotional and sexual abuse, and the crushing effects of poverty suffered by children can adversely affect their health during childhood and later in life, a bullet point in Kristof’s slideshow jumped out: “Stress and trauma are toxic, especially for young children, and change how the brain develops.” The doctor studies the medical outcomes and the journalist writes about the sociological and economic ones. Both are tied together by the physical and psychological traumas so many children and adults are subject to, all caused and exacerbated by poverty. Of course racism plays a big part in all of this too, as both detailed. Interesting and thought provoking stuff!
