Trauma and Diverse C h i l d P o p u l a t i o n s ToiBlakley Harris, MD a, * , L. Lee Carlisle, MD b , John Sargent, MD c , Annelle B. Primm, MD, MPH d,e The importance of cultural diversity in the study of childhood trauma has long been appreciated intuitively. Acquiring the empiric evidence to guide assessment and treat- ment, however, has been a slow and arduous process, which is not difficult to under- stand given that culture is a fluid entity relevant to infinite subpopulations. Despite the difficulties, research in the area of childhood trauma has increasingly endeavored to examine and understand issues of culture and diversity. TYPES OF TRAUMA Estimates oflifetime prevalence rates of trauma exposure have been challenging because of difficulties with attempts to quantify the nature of trauma, duration, diag- nostic criteria used, cultural factors related to the meaning of the traumatic event, and the available support during and after the trauma. 1 There are varying reports of the prevalence rates of childhood trauma in the literature. In 2008, Cohen and colleagues 2 reviewed data and reported that up to 68% of youth in a primary care setting had been exposed to potentially life-threatening events (PTE) and greater than half of these indi- viduals have encountered multiple PTEs. A prospective study involving controls and childhood maltreatment survivors found 98.9% of the 882 participants reported at least 1 traumatic event by the 40 years of age. In this study, the rates of multiple inter- personal traumas were more pronounced in child maltreatment survivors, but the rate of other types of traumatic exposures (ie, naturaldisasters,combat experience, The authors have nothing to disclose. a Menninger Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences,Baylor College of Medicine, 1 Baylor Plaza BCM 350, Houston, TX 77030, USA b Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences,University of Washington,Box 356560, Seattle, WA 98195-6560, USA c Department of Psychiatry, Tufts Medical Center, 800 Washington Street, Boston, MA 02111, USA d Department of Psychiatry, Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD, USA e Minority and National Affairs, American Psychiatric Association, 1000 Boulevard, Suite 1825, Arlington, VA 22209-3901, USA * Corresponding author. E-mail address: toih@bcm.edu KEYWORDS Culture Childhood Adolescence Trauma Child Adolesc Psychiatric Clin N Am 19 (2010) 869–887 doi:10.1016/j.chc.2010.07.007 childpsych.theclinics.com 1056-4993/10/$ – see front matter Ó 2010 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.