I also included links to the in-depth /Chicago Tribune/ 4/28/08 article
on the child health impact of neighborhood violence in Chicago:
http://www.chicagotribune.com/services/newspaper/printedition/monday/chi-violence-health-28-apr28,2,7222523,full.story

There's much more materials _currently_ on the /Chicago Tribune/ website
(including interview video, images, etc. - see *Related links* at end of 
article for list of related content),
but I'm not confident about how long the links will stay up.  Despite 
being front page, leading headline story in
that day's print edition, the story has already been buried fairly 
deeply in the website. 
There's also another flaw with this article - it only counts gunshot 
fatalities, and not the true total of all violent deaths,
even though it talk about the impact of exposure to any form of violence 
on children's health and development.

And more -- see in my next post -- Part 2. the policy response to 
epidemic urban violence.

  -- Alice Furumoto-Dawson

________________________________________________________________________________

*Hidden wounds of violence 
<http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/chi-violence-health-28-apr28,2,7358525.story>* 


*Urban Epidemics -- second in an occasional series about chronic 
diseases and their impact on urban communities.
*By Deborah L. Shelton |  Tribune reporter
April 28, 2008

De'Jour Stewart remembers feeling happy as he walked to school for a 
soccer practice last May. Then, two blocks from his Cabrini-Green home, 
shots rang out. As he dived for cover behind a garbage bin, De'Jour 
heard bullets ricocheting around him. Nearby, a wounded man slumped in a 
car. De'Jour escaped physical harm that day, but he hasn't been the same 
boy since.
"Before this happened, I was happy," said a despondent De'Jour, now 11. 
"I liked to go places---downtown and around Cabrini---I'd ride my bike 
all over." Now he prefers to stay close to home.

*"I don't think the world is safe for me," he said.*

Twenty-one Chicago public school students have been fatally shot this 
school year, victims of violence gripping the city, and others survived 
their injuries. But countless more children carry invisible wounds from 
witnessing acts of violence up close or even just hearing about it.
People are quick to speak of "an epidemic of violence," but some health 
experts say the expression deserves closer attention. Chicago's 
violence, they argue, is a public health crisis for its children.
According to a large and growing body of research, exposure to violence 
is linked to childhood depression, anxiety, post-traumatic stress 
disorder, learning problems, sleep difficulties, poor academic 
performance and a host of other problems. Persistent fear, scientists 
say, can cause neurophysiological changes in a child's brain that can 
impair physiological, behavioral, cognitive and social functioning.
"What we're seeing more and more is that the impact of street violence 
and trauma is not just from being a victim, but from living in a 
neighborhood where people are talking about it and feeling anxious," 
said Colleen Cicchetti, a pediatric psychologist who directs trauma 
services at Children's Memorial Hospital.
Some health professionals believe the impact goes even deeper---that the 
fear keeping children like De'Jour off their bikes and behind closed 
doors is contributing to increases in obesity, diabetes and other 
chronic health problems.
As the ripple effects of violence are increasingly recognized, 
collaborations between state, city and private organizations are forming 
to help children and families. The Chicago Department of Public Health 
operates the Chicago Safe Start program with more than $3 million in 
funding from the U.S. Department of Justice, and thousands of early 
child-care and education providers have completed training on the 
effects of childhood exposure to violence.
"From the health department's perspective, when bad things happen to 
children and it isn't addressed in a proactive way, it can have 
long-term emotional and physical impacts," said Anne Parry, director of 
the city health department's office of violence prevention.

*"Shame on us if we know this and don't do something."
*
*'Living in a war zone'

*In some Chicago neighborhoods, the city estimates, 25 percent of 
children have witnessed a shooting and 30 percent have witnessed a stabbing.
"We believe this nonsense that kids get adjusted to the gunshots, but 
living in a war zone is a form of terrorism," said Carl S. Taylor, a 
sociology professor at Michigan State University who has spent more than 
20 years studying violence and children in urban communities.
"I see kids who look old beyond their years. They do not have the joy 
and sense of childhood. It's a living hell in these communities, and in 
the long run you're not going to produce healthy people."
In the Brighton Park neighborhood, 14-year-old Michelle Formella lost 
her next-door neighbor and surrogate big brother to a shooting in 
February 2006. Matthew Ramirez was only 16 when he died.
She tries to focus on positive memories, but the shooting "will always 
be in my head," she said. "It can really hurt a kid and make them think 
differently about the world."

*Even children far from a crime scene can be deeply affected.*

Demear Thorne, 10, lives in the Logan Square neighborhood, miles from 
the Far South Side shooting that took the life of 16-year-old Julian 
High School student Blair Holt on a CTA bus last May.
Holt was killed when an alleged gang member fired at another teenager 
seated at the back of the bus. He died shielding a classmate.
Hearing about the incident left Demear terrified of riding a CTA bus. 
When he boarded one for the first time since the shooting---nine months 
later---the slight boy with wire-rimmed glasses said his heart was 
pounding with fear.
"I was hoping I would be safe," he said, tugging at his shirt as if his 
heart was leaping out of his chest. "My heart kept going 'thump-thump, 
thump-thump.' "
"I was shocked," said Sari Mills, his great-aunt, who learned about his 
fear only after quizzing him about his missing book bag. He was so 
nervous he had left it at his grandmother's. "We had no idea that he was 
going through all this trauma."

Dr. Karen Sheehan, an attending physician at Children's Memorial 
Hospital, said some of her pediatric patients confide that they 
sometimes have difficulty falling asleep because they feel afraid. She 
worries about the emotional and physical toll.
"Lack of sleep leads to obesity, attention-deficit disorders and other 
things that feed into a cycle of poor health," said Sheehan, who works 
in the hospital's emergency room and in one of its primary-care clinics.

*Lower IQ, reading scores
*

The psychological damage that violence can wreak has been documented in 
numerous studies in the last decade.
For example, a study in the Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent 
Medicine in 2002 found that Detroit 1st graders exposed to violence and 
trauma-related distress had a lower IQ and reading scores. Researchers 
at the University of Illinois at Chicago reported in 1998 that exposure 
to community violence resulted in increased aggressive behavior and 
depression in African-American and Hispanic boys living in low-income 
Chicago neighborhoods. In 1995, researchers found a high percentage of 
post-traumatic stress disorder symptoms in teenage girls exposed to 
violence in New Haven, Conn.

Among the other consequences is decreased physical activity by children 
whose parents restrict time spent outdoors. That can lead to weight 
gain, increasing children's risk of developing diabetes, high blood 
pressure and other chronic illnesses.
Maryann Mason, associate director of the Child Health Data Lab at 
Children's Memorial Research Center, is conducting research on the 
physical activity levels of children ages 5 to 10 who live in five 
primarily low-income black and Hispanic neighborhoods in Chicago.

Her team has found that the parents most likely to keep their children 
indoors weren't always the ones living in areas with the most crime; 
they were the ones who thought the crime rate was highest.
"The higher the parental perception of crime, the more sedentary the 
kids are after school," Mason said. "It's probably true that they are 
keeping them inside to play video games and watch TV."
Beyond its effects on weight, play is the primary means by which 
children learn to regulate their emotions and behavior, said Dr. Stuart 
Brown, a psychiatrist and president of the National Institute for Play.
"Social learning is fostered by play and exploration," he said. "When 
those types of activities are constricted, a child's future is also 
constricted."

Experts said the message children get about the city's relentless 
violence is equally damaging. The violence reinforces feelings of 
limitation, helplessness and loss.
"No matter what they're doing or where they're going, it's in the backs 
of their minds---sometimes even in the forefront of their minds---that 
they may not be safe," said Brad Stolbach, a psychologist at the Child 
Trauma Center at La Rabida Children's Hospital. "Even if children are 
not dealing with specific personal loss or injury, they have a lingering 
and foreboding sense that the world is not safe."

De'Jour Stewart's mother, Norine Rhodes, said she has enrolled him in 
tutoring, mentoring and other programs to give him an outlet for his 
energy in a safe, indoor environment.
The shooting shook her to the core. "But you have to keep your child 
encouraged, strong and uplifted," she said.
De'Jour said he tries to cope with his fears by avoiding crowds and 
staying close to home. He fondly recalls his more carefree life.
"I was happy," he said.

[log in to unmask]
Copyright © 2008, Chicago Tribune

*Related links
*
    *      Kids at Cabrini-Green talk about violence Video
    *      Kidney failure takes deadly toll on blacks in Chicago
    *      Hundreds gather for peace rally Video
    *      More stories:  Student deaths mount
    *      Teen shooting victims Teen shooting victims Photos
    *      CPS students killed throughout the city in the 2007-2008 
school year
           [24 students, locations mapped so far & related news story links]

          Map data ©2008 Tele Atlas - Terms of Use
          View Detailed Version

    *      Deadly Lessons Video


-- 
Alice Furumoto-Dawson, Ph.D.
Sr. Research Associate
Center for Interdisciplinary Health Disparities Research
Institute for Mind & Biology
University of Chicago
Chicago, IL - USA

Email:  [log in to unmask]
http://cihdr.uchicago.edu/


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