By David Rettew M.D., ABCs of Child Psychiatry

The last decade of the 1990s was often labeled the “Decade of the Brain,” as many mental health clinicians and researchers emphasized biological and genetic factors as contributing to both mental health and illness. Over the last 15 or so years however, the pendulum has swung the other way, with a lot of focus on the role of traumatic and adverse experiences as the primary contributors to mental health disorders. Included in the expanded definition of adverse experiences are societal factors, often called social determinants of health, that include things such as poverty, racism, and lack of access to safe and healthy environments.