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Introduction to the special section: Using the Trauma History Profile to unpack risk factor caravans and their consequences.

2014; American Psychological Association; Volume: 6; Issue: Suppl 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1037/a0037768

1942-9681

Christopher M. Layne, Ernestine C. Briggs, Christine A. Courtois,

Injury Epidemiology and Prevention

In this overview, we discuss the utility of the concept of risk factor caravan (Layne et al., 2009 )a s a conceptual vehicle for depicting how constellations of various risk factors tend to co-occur, accumulate in number, accrue and cascade forward in their harmful effects, and “travel” with their host across development. We also propose the concept of risk factor caravan passageway as a tool for describing the disadvantaged, resource-poor, and often dangerous ecologies that give rise to and maintain risk factor caravans across the life course. These twin concepts build upon and complement the concepts of resource caravan and resource caravan passageway as advanced by conservation of resources theory (Hobfoll, 2011; 2012). Our aim is to promote the scientific study of the diverse ways through which youths’ physical and social ecologies may profoundly affect (for good or ill) their developmental trajectories, life experiences, and life attainments. We discuss ways in which the Trauma History Profile—a tool for assessing exposure to a broad variety of types of trauma and loss across childhood and adolescence (Pynoos et al., 2014), combined with the concepts of risk factor caravans and caravan passageways, add conceptual richness, balance, developmental perspective, and methodological rigor to the study of such complex phenomena as the ACE Pyramid (Felitti et al., 1998), complex trauma exposure, and complex traumatic stress disorder (Ford & Courtois, 2013). We conclude by discussing ways in which the five papers making up the special section illustrate key concepts and applications of these conceptual and assessment tools.