The JPB Research Network on Toxic Stress, led by Dr. Jack Shonkoff, is working on developing biological and behavioral markers for adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) and resilience that they believe will be able to measure to what extent a child is experiencing toxic stress, and what effect that stress may be having on the child’s brain and development.
The JPB Research Network on Toxic Stress is comprised of scientists, pediatricians and community leaders, and is a project of the Center on the Developing Child at Harvard University.
Jack P. Shonkoff, M.D. is the Julius B. Richmond FAMRI Professor of Child Health and Development at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and Harvard Graduate School of Education; Professor of Pediatrics at Harvard Medical School and Boston Children’s Hospital; and Director of the Center on the Developing Child at Harvard University. He currently chairs the National Scientific Council on the Developing Child, whose mission is to bring credible science to bear on public policy affecting children and families, and The JPB Research Network on Toxic Stress. In 2011, he launched Frontiers of Innovation, a multi-sector R&D platform committed to achieving breakthrough outcomes at scale for young children facing adversity.
Dr. Shonkoff was interviewed by filmmaker Roger Weisberg about the innovations in research around developing ways of measuring toxic stress in Weisberg’s documentary Broken Places, which will be previewed at the National ACEs Conference. That interview was the impetus for the following conversation.
Laurie Udesky: In your interview with the filmmaker Roger Weisberg for the documentary Broken Places you said:
“We will have a measure to be able to differentiate between children who seem to be more sensitive to adversity and therefore need more attention. And at the same time this will be a measure of resilience because there are a lot of children living in very tough environments who are doing well and whose parents are doing a magnificent job. That’s the big breakthrough. It’s being able to measure this at an individual level.”
Laurie Udesky: Where is the science now in our ability to measure and differentiate children with ACEs who are more sensitive to adversity from those who are less so?
Dr. Jack Shonkoff: It’s very close; the measurement battery we’re working on is no more than a couple of years away from being ready to start being used widely in pediatric settings.
Basically what we’re talking about is the JPB Research Network on Toxic Stress, and I direct that group standing on the shoulders of a dream team of scientists, and a dream team of practicing pediatricians, and a dream team of community leaders, primarily community leaders of color, who have collectively been working together three and a half years now as coequal partners on this. And the reason that’s important is because there’s obviously a scientific dimension to this, which
