It's easy to stumble upon some syringes and blame addicts for ruining the town.
But no one is born with a needle in his arm or a pipe in her mouth.
Research shows that adverse childhood experiences can influence addiction, obesity and mental health problems later in life ā and one local agency is trying to reset the dialogue on fighting those problems.
"In Cowlitz County, the prevalence of people who have three or more of those adverse childhood experiences is higher than the state of Washington," Cowlitz Community Network board member Michael O'Neill said. "So that means there's more risk in the population for all sorts of negative social and health outcomes."
Such experiences include witnessing domestic violence, divorce, being surrounded by drug abuse or other "trauma and toxic stress," O'Neill said.
[For more of this story, written by Brooks Johnson, go to http://tdn.com/news/local/cowl...00-1653dcf1377f.html]
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