Trauma Informed Care
In the United States alone, trauma is the number one cause of death for individuals from 1 year old to 45 years old. Earlier this week, Dr. Earl Fredrick, NextLevel Health’s Senior Medical Director, participated in the American College of Surgeon’s Committee on Trauma’s convenings. The working group, titled ISAVE (Improving Social determinants to Attenuate ViolencE), brings medical professionals together to discuss the root causes of disparate health outcomes across communities.
Dr. Fredrick is a thought leader social determinants impact on health and influence on gun violence. In his recently published Harvard Public Health Review article, Death, Violence, Health and Poverty in Chicago, Dr. Fredrick explains that through his work and research on Chicago’s South Side, he found that the same neighborhoods with extremes of chronic disease also experienced extreme poverty, residential racial segregation, and gun violence. He noted the strong link between poverty, poor education, poor health, early death, racial residential segregation, and gun violence in Chicago. He has sought to address these social determinants to make our communities healthier.
This year, we partnered with Morehouse School of Medicine and the Illinois Legislative Black Caucus Foundation to launch the Advancing Men’s Health Through Primary Care Conference. This national conference convened thought leaders from across the medical field to discuss how addressing the social determinants of health in our communities can help reduce instances of trauma specifically gun violence.
NextLevel Health’s Barbershop Initiative meets men in their communities. By partnering with local barbers and barbershops who are invested in promoting healthier outcomes in their communities, families are having critical conversations about the importance of health and economic development their neighborhoods. NextLevel Health equips our partner barbers with resources, information, and healthy snacks to help foster conversations about preventive health, and in many instances, the high levels of trauma that occur in their communities.
At NextLevel Health we are committed to managing and coordinating healthcare with a deep understanding of you, your community, and your health—one on one, right in your neighborhood. We work closely with a number of providers and facilities who provide Trauma Informed Care. When a Member is admitted due to trauma, our Care Coordinators provide support to our Trauma Center partners, support a safe discharge process for our Members, and assist in home health coordination and transportation to and from appointments. Nextlevel Health is also sensitive to the mental health needs that attend traumatic experiences, providing counseling and grieving opportunities for our Members.
The importance of Trauma Informed Care cannot be understated. On average, 96 Americans die by firearms each day. In Chicago alone, there were 561 homicides and more than 24,000 violent crimes in 2018. We are proud to have Dr. Fredrick’s expertise as we work together to not only improve Trauma Care, but to also help eliminate the root causes of disparate care across the communities we serve.