Shooting, gang violence exposure leads to PTSD
Also noteworthy, women with PTSD diagnosis or sub-threshold PTSD had significantly more severe depression symptoms than women in the study who didn't report experiencing trauma. Every woman who was recruited had symptoms of depression. "There are many women who are affected by shooting and gang violence in these neighborhoods," said first author Sunghyun Hong, a research assistant at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. "These women are often overlooked. With this study, we were able to shine a light on this high prevalence of trauma exposure and PTSD diagnosis among the underserved population." This is one of very few studies to explicitly examine the impact that living in a disadvantaged neighborhood has on PTSD symptoms. The study was published Dec. 7 in the Journal of Racial and Ethnic Health Disparities (pdf of study available for free download at this link). The traumatic experiences reported in the study were often violent or sex...