Innovation in Methods and Measures of Historical Trauma and Microaggression Distress

Wednesday Afternoon Lecture Series American Indians and Alaska Natives have endured a succession of historically traumatic assaults and discriminatory events over time against their land, communities, families, and persons. Indigenous community discourse suggests that historical trauma combined with contemporary microaggressions distress can potentially become embodied in health outcomes and health-risk behaviors, particularly substance-use-related risk. Dr. Walters’s presentation will describe how historical trauma and microaggressions impact indigenous embodiment of health in a six-site national study of 447 gay, lesbian, bisexual, and other sexual-minority (two-spirit) American Indians/Alaska Natives. Results indicated that after controlling for childhood and adult traumatic-event exposure and combat exposure, historical trauma-event exposure in previous generations was associated with contemporary substance-use outcomes. Additionally, high levels self-reported discrimination distress and historical trauma loss was associated with higher odds of physical pain and impairment and non-ceremonial tobacco use. Moreover, high levels of positive-identity attitudes were associated with lower odds of physical pain and impairment as well as self-rated poor health. Congruent with the indigenist stress-coping model, identity attitudes moderated the influence of discrimination distress and historical trauma loss on self-rated health and smoking behaviors. Future directions for mea...
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