Commentary: Key Issues, Concluding Thoughts, and Future Directions for the Study of Trauma and Child Health

Although the majority of children experience at leastone potentially traumatic event (PTE) by adolescence(Copeland, Keeler, Angold, & Costello, 2007;Costello, Erkanli, Fairbank, & Angold, 2002), previ-ous research offered little empirical foundation or con-ceptual guidance regarding relationships betweentrauma and child health. The papers included in thisSpecial Issue collectively offer informed directions andillustrate excellent examples of programs of researchseeking to elucidate the complex associations betweenchild traumatic stress and physical health. Preliminaryfindings and theoretical advances presented through-out this Special Issue underscore the importance ofcontinued efforts on this front.In the sections below, we consider each group ofstudies in this Special Issue, highlighting their key con-tributions. We also reflect on this Special Issue and of-fer recommendations for advancing science andpractice in this important area of child health.Maltreatment and VictimizationThe consequences of child maltreatment and victimiza-tion are a serious public health concern. Millions ofchildren experience maltreatment and victimization ev-ery year. Over 679,000 cases of abuse were confirmedin the United States in 2013 alone (U.S. Department ofHealth and Human Services & on Children, 2013), androughly 15–30% of youth report experiencing peer vic-timization (i.e., receiving physical or psychologicalharm from peers; Dinkes, Cataldi, Lin-Kelly, S Luxenberg, Limber, & Olweus, 2014).The considerable negative mental health consequencesof maltreatment and victimization are well documented(Banyard, Williams & Siegel, 2001; De Bellis et al.,2002; Landoll et al., 2015; Widom, Czaja, Wilson,Allwood, & Chauhan, 2013), but the impact of mal-treatment and victimization on child health are only be-ginning to be understood (Sachs-Ericsson, Blazer, Plant,A Springer, Sheridan, Kuo, & Carnes,2007). Several articles in this Special Issue build on thisimportant literature and reflect considerable progress inunderstanding key relationships between maltreatmentand victimization and child health.Importantly, it is currently unclear when adversephysical health effects of childhood maltreatment andvictimization emerge. Research has primarily focusedon the relationship between maltreatment and victimi-zation and adult health conditions (Afifi, Mota,MacMillan, & Sareen, 2013, Goodwin, Hoven,Murison, & Hotopf, 2003; Springer et al., 2007;seeArias, 2004 for a review). In a rare exception, in this is-sue, Gooding, Milliren, Austin, Sheridan, andMcLaughlin (2015) compared arterial pressure and cir-culation in adolescents who reported abuse with thosewho did not, and found that abused youth had higherresting diastolic blood pressure and blunted diastolicand systolic blood pressure reactivity to laboratorystressors. This study contributes to a growing body ofliterature documenting that the health effects of mal-treatment and victimization are evident in childhood(McLaughlin, Sheridan, Alves, & Mendes, 2014).An important next step is to understand whetherspecific types of maltreatment and victimization placeyouth at differential risk for adverse health outcomes.Past research has largely focused on the general impact