Commentary: Using a trauma-informed care framework to address the upstream and downstream correlates of youth violence

Emergency departments (EDs) play a critical role in the public health infrastructure of the United States. Annually, emergency physicians treat 130 million patients and have the highest daily volumes in the health care system.¹ Unlike physicians in other specialties, emergency physicians do not get to choose their patient pathology and instead must be able to deal quickly and equitably with all types of patients and pathologies that present to their EDs. This charge is a badge of pride for most in emergency medicine, but it can be difficult, particularly when one lacks an understanding of the community and sociocultural circumstances of the patients being served.

This article is part of a special supplement: Inventing Social Emergency Medicine: A Consensus Conference to Establish the Intellectual Underpinnings of Social Emergency Medicine.