The African American Historical Loss and Trauma Response Scales: Development and initial psychometric evaluation

Racism in the United States has constituted transgenerational legacies of trauma for people of African descent. Scholars have highlighted the immense emotional and psychological consequences of race-based traumatic stress; yet a complete understanding of the impact of historical trauma for African Americans is hampered by the lack of instrumentation for use in quantitative methodologies. We thus sought to develop psychometrically sound instruments to better understand impacts derived from the injury of enslavement and ongoing racial traumas and the resulting emotional impacts of historical losses due to racism. Data were collected from two samples during exploratory (N = 467) and confirmatory (N = 449) factor analysis phases of the development of two measures assessing historical losses and trauma responses, respectively. Historical Loss Scale items assess the frequency in which participants find themselves thinking about the history of societal, economic, and cultural devastation of racism. These items include emphasis on disintegrations of familial and community structures as well as losses associated with modern-day injustices. Trauma Response Scale items evaluate grief and trauma responses and feelings of empowerment and reclamation. Additional data were collected to examine evidence of construct and incremental validity. Implications for the use of the scales for research and psychological practice are discussed. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).