What do you think of when I say the word trauma? Do you think of a trauma center at a hospital, the emergency room where people who have suffered physical trauma come in for immediate care? Or do you think about trauma in a mental health aspect such as for those who suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder or PTSD? Perhaps you think of a traumatic incident that you've personally faced. Or maybe your science communication activities revolve around issues that are traumatic, like policy or planning around events that involve major loss of life or property, such as wildfires, flooding, or major storms like hurricanes. According to the American Psychological Association, trauma is an emotional response to a terrible event like an accident, rape, or natural disaster. Importantly, trauma doesn't always manifest as an emotional reaction. We usually think about these emotional reactions with trauma, strong emotions, unpredictable emotions, things like flashbacks. But there can also be physical symptoms like insomnia, nightmares, headaches, body tension, and nausea. If we look at the history of the word trauma, it comes from the Greek word wound. Trauma represents a wound that we can't see in another person. Although it's easy to think of pathologies of trauma, it's actually a broad and relatively common experience. Approximately 50-60 percent of people will experience a traumatic event. These range from car accidents, either one that you participate in or witness, experiencing discrimination or some form of physical or sexual assault. Approximately four percent of men and eight percent of women in the United States are diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder. This includes PTSD related to an incident or the less understood complex or CPTSD that is the result of repeated trauma over many years, for example amongst children who are abused or neglected by their parents. As we've talked about throughout this specialization, and especially in this course, people have reasons to have negative feelings towards science. That can make our jobs as science communicators more complicated. The first and most important step we can take as science communicators is to be aware of what's going on in the background of our audience. This module is on equity and inclusion. What does trauma-informed science communication have to do with inclusion? If we want to understand our audiences, we also need to make sure that everyone in our audience has a seat at the table so their voices can be heard. If we want to be inclusive, we must also be trauma-informed. Many issues that science communicators care about, like climate change are adjacent to traumatic events. If we want to be effective communicators and also ethical communicators, we must be trauma-informed. What does that mean? What does it mean to be a trauma-informed science communicator? Fundamentally, it comes back to ensuring that whatever we do is not really traumatizing someone. Some key principles to note include one, recognizing that someone has experienced trauma, and then also recognizing the behaviors we see, such as avoidance of firstly the science are the result of trauma or other negative experiences. Next, to always treat people with respect and kindness and finally, to be aware of power dynamics in our activities. Power is important in any relationship, and especially in the case of trauma. Many times, trauma occurs because of a loss of power or inability to prevent the death of a loved one, to stop someone from assaulting you, or to get away from abuse. Therefore, it's very important to create safe space where we empower others. We'll learn more about how to share power in the reading that follows this video. People are all different and as a result, responses to trauma are different too. We know from molecular biology research that certain gene variants make people more likely to develop PTSD. Some people respond to trauma by falling apart, others experience post-traumatic growth , some people do both. For example some women suffer clinically diagnosed with PTSD following a miscarriage, for others, it's a sad inconvenience. This of course relates to clinical care as well, something we'll come back to later in this lesson. One thing to be aware of, the word trauma means different things to different people. Sometimes people don't use it to describe their experiences. Things can be bothersome and color someone's experience without being traumatic. This is again why it's important to listen and pay attention to our target audience and respond appropriately. Let's take wildfires as an example. I live in Colorado and near a wildfire prone area. I'll never forget the fall of 2020 during the Cameron Peak Fire, which was the largest wildfire in Colorado history. Local news reports describe the view out the window to be like looking into Mordor, in reference to the fictional volcanic region in JRR Tolkien's Lord of the Rings. Although my house wasn't immediately threatened by this fire, we were close enough to see the flames and close enough to have it rain ash. We had to turn on our lights in the middle of the day because the ash clouds were so thick in the sky that they'd block the sun. When we did see the sun it appeared as the bright red in the sky. This is a picture that I took in my front yard of the spiderweb full of ash from that fall. Was this a traumatic experience? I wouldn't personally describe it as traumatic to me, I would say it was disturbing, it was upsetting. Would someone who lost property say something different? It's likely, but not definitive. Again, it all depends on the person's individual response. There's also some suggestion that people respond differently depending on how many traumatic events they've experienced in the past. Trauma isn't necessarily an individual phenomenon either. I've heard the COVID-19 pandemic described as a collective traumatic experience, is something that happened to all of us together at once. Sometimes people respond to trauma by seeking out more information. As science communicators, we need to be ready to respond and engage with traumatized communities seeking more information. Other times, people need a little bit of time and space to process from what happened before they'll be ready to have a conversation or learn more information. It does absolutely no good to talk to someone who just lost their house in the aftermath of the storm, why building houses on floodplains or move in wetlands and favorite resorts are bad ideas. Communication works best if it's done at the right time in the right place. We also need to make sure we don't impose our own narratives on others and let their stories speak first and foremost. Again, remember from Course 1, we are just as susceptible to bias as anyone else and want to make sure we don't take someone else's story and exist it and change it as part of a schema in our own brains. Said otherwise, don't color another's experience based on the story that you want to tell or what's going on in your head or to achieve some other motive. It's hard to know when to turn it on and off. Depending on our role, avoidance of an issue isn't always possible or propria. This is why again, it comes down to reading your audience and being able to provide timely and appropriate communication and adapt quickly depending on who you're speaking to and how they are affected. Another important consideration for us as science communicators, especially for those who worked in issues pertaining the vaccinations or other medical treatments is that medical trauma and medical discrimination is a very real phenomenon. At the end of the day, the doctor's office is a key location for people to receive scientific information and where people must use that scientific information to make personal decisions. Poor care or experience of discrimination can turn people often medical profession, and also any medically relevant scientific information. This leads to worse health care outcomes for all and increase public health burden. Though we may be doing our best, we may still be facing conscious or subconscious trauma experience in medical settings that fuels anti-science behaviors, many of which we are working to address. Being trauma-informed also means being aware of vicarious trauma or secondary trauma. This occurs when someone is working with people who've experienced trauma. This relates to another theme we've seen throughout this course. We must always attend to our emotional needs first and foremost, so that we can be the best communicators possible. We don't want to sacrifice our own well-being in service of our job.
