Historical Trauma

A broad term referring to the cumulative effects of traumatic experiences spanning multiple generations, impacting either a particular family or an entire community, culture or people. Linked to greater contemporary disease prevalence, health disparities, social marginalization, poverty and risk outcomes. The current generation bears the cumulative grief and loss of all those that came before. In many instances, aspects of historical trauma continue in present day through overt or covert forms of oppression and discrimination. Often used interchangeably with the term ancestral trauma.