Collaboration Leads to Improved Healthcare Access for Newark

As a part of our "Newark at a Crossroads" series, taped at NJIT, Keri Logosso-Misurell, Esq., Director of the Greater Newark Healthcare Coalition, talks about how her organization is trying to engage university faculty, researchers and community-based advocates to reduce adverse traumatic experiences in urban areas.

10/4/16 #1903

Excerpt:

"Welcome to the New jersey Institute of Technology. I'm Steve Adubato. It is my pleasure to introduce someone who's been with us many times, an important conversation. Keri Logosso-Misurell, director, Greater Newark Healthcare Coalition. Good to see you Keri. Same here Steve, thanks. Trauma. Trauma in urban areas, in Newark, across the country, but particularly in urban areas. What kind of trauma are we talking about? So we define trauma as an event or a series of events or a set of circumstances that a person perceives as harmful to them emotionally or physically, or even life threatening, and that has long lasting negative impacts on their mental and physical health. And examples would be things like witnessing or experiencing physical, emotional, or sexual abuse, domestic violence, a parent who struggles with a mental health disorder, or a substance abuse disorder. Hmm. You have an initiative right here in the city of Newark to deal with trauma. Talk about it. Yeah, so Greater Newark Healthcare Coalition was fortunate enough to be selected as part of a multi site demonstration project, supported by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and led by the Center For Healthcare Strategies. This is across the nation? Yeah we're one of six sites in the country, so we're really excited about that, and the goal is to advance the adoption of trauma informed approaches to healthcare. Back up. Trauma informed approaches? What does that mean? So a trauma informed approach is one that shifts the conversation from focusing on what's wrong with the patient or the person, to what happened to the person. Give me for instance. So it takes into account the person's life circumstances. So in the healthcare setting, a person with asthma, you want to understand more about the person's home life and their family dynamics, and what kinds of stressors they've experienced, or are experiencing, that would help you better tailor the care to treat the asthma in a more effective way. What are we missing right now? So one of the big things is something we now have an opportunity to do, and the show is helping with, is educate people about adverse childhood experiences or trauma, and the lifelong impact that they have on health, with the hopeful and good news that there are interventions and preventative strategies that could improve health outcomes for us. So play this out for a second. So we tape this series right here in the city of Newark. Yeah. In the heart of the city of Newark. Right. In the Central Ward. Mm hmm. Where we are at NJIT, right around the corner. Anywhere here in the city, in any city right across this nation..."