MANISH NANDY,DEBARGHYA BISWAS,SONAM PURI
DOI: https://doi.org/When wars, earthquakes, or cruel treatment send entire groups scrambling to escape, the injury doesn’t land only on the single runner it soaks whole neighborhoods into the same grief, a wound so deep the experts call it collective trauma. This project pushes into that broad, stinging hurt. By using careful surveys, we slowly peel back the quiet, buried layers of trauma carried by those who have had to leave their homes behind. Guided by cultural sensitivity, our tool measures symptoms like a lost sense of control, mourning that belongs to the entire group, disruption of personal and collective identity, and a breaking apart of social and emotional ties. We gathered information from three large displaced groups living in very different cultural settings. By applying Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) and Item Response Theory (IRT), we confirmed that our findings are reliable, that they truly represent the intended concept, and that they are comparable across the different groups. The results show distinct clusters of collective trauma, underscoring common emotional scars alongside unique, context-bound expressions. These insights are vital for designing humanitarian aid, creating trauma-responsive policies, and shaping mental health programs for displaced communities around the globe.
