Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) needs to be understood as disability for many reasons. First, it’s a disability, requiring numerous varieties of interventions and accommodations. Second, it’s incredibly common, so when we understand it as disability, it challenges our notion of normal, whole, or abled. These are lines we need to blur.
From Chicago Tribune, here’s a new study on trauma and black women in Chicago.
A recent Northwestern Medicine study that examined the South Side neighborhood of Oakland found that 29 percent of the 72 African-American study participants have the disorder and an additional 7 percent exhibited a large number of signs that are part of a PTSD diagnosis. Researchers said they believe that points to a need for more mental health services and screenings in poor neighborhoods.
This isn’t news, but more data is important as advocates work for better trauma-informed practices among government agents.
Of course, when Chicago got a million dollars recently to address trauma in the neighborhoods, they spent almost all of it on new cops.