Can treating past trauma lead to big US health savings?

For two decades, there's been evidence that people who suffered childhood trauma — violence, sexual abuse or family dysfunction — are much more likely to have a chronic health problems and engage in risky behavior.


Now, 14 community health centers around the U.S. are acting as laboratories for an experiment to see if screening and then treating people for trauma can improve the results from treatment they get for their diabetes, heart disease, pulmonary disease or other ailments.

While the main goal of that project is to get participants leading healthier, happier and longer lives, there's also a potential positive financial side effect. If the project works — and the lessons learned are expanded on a large scale — it may help create savings of billions of dollars for the health-care system by reducing overall medical spending.

Kaiser Permanente is backing the Trauma Informed Primary Care project, which is being conducted by the National Council for Behavioral Health, a group of about 2,500 mental health and treatment organizations. Kaiser Permanente operates a health insurance plan with nearly 10 million members, and as such has an interest in strategies that could hold down medical costs.

Since last spring, the centers participating in the project have been screening groups of clients: Each center decides what physical conditions to focus on, and what level of trauma to use as a cut-off point. Patients who meet those criteria are given the option of receiving help to deal with their trauma along with their chronic condition.