Mental Health

A psychiatrist who has studied migrant and refugee children around the world points to one powerful protective factor against tremendous adversity — social connections.

Last spring, survivors began experiencing denials, delays and limits for surgeries, physical therapy, counseling, equipment and prescriptions — including painkillers, antidepressants and anti-anxiety medication.

"After scouring several large surveys of teens for clues," researcher Jean Twenge writes, "I found that all of the possibilities traced back to a major change in teens’ lives: the sudden ascendance of the smartphone."

This story is part of a four-part series on Dec. 2, 2015, terrorist attack survivors’ recovery and California’s workers’ compensation system. The project was undertaken for the USC Center for Health Journalism’s California Fellowship.

For a reporter who found signs of hopelessness in one Kern County community after another, childhood trauma turned out to be the unifying theme, handed down from one generation to the next.

This story is part of a series on Dec. 2, 2015, terrorist attack survivors’ recovery and California’s workers’ compensation system. The project was undertaken for the USC Center for Health Journalism’s California Fellowship.

This story is part of a series on Dec. 2, 2015, terrorist attack survivors’ recovery and California’s workers’ compensation system. The project was undertaken for the USC Center for Health Journalism’s California Fellowship.

This story is part of a series on Dec. 2, 2015, terrorist attack survivors’ recovery and California’s workers’ compensation system. The project was undertaken for the USC Center for Health Journalism’s California Fellowship.

While many students seem unaffected by the violence, medical experts say the mere knowledge of killings can cause them to experience their own trauma and lose their sense of safety.

California spends an estimated $4 to $5 billion a year on mental health services for children and teens. Our goal is to find out whether access to mental health care is equitable across the state, as required by law.