New book reveals childhood trauma kills 1,401 Americans every day — and faith communities may be the most underutilized healing force in the country
NASHVILLE, Tenn.— Every Sunday morning, millions of Americans walk into church carrying something far heavier than a Bible. They carry the invisible weight of childhood trauma — abuse, neglect, household dysfunction — and most congregations have no idea it’s happening. No screening. No training. No plan, says Michael Menard.
Menard, the founder of United Against Childhood Trauma (UACT) and bestselling author, calls it “bleeding in the pews.” His book, Greater Than Gravity: How Childhood Trauma Is Pulling Down Humanity, presents the first comprehensive analysis connecting childhood trauma to America’s leading causes of death — and makes a direct case that faith communities are uniquely positioned to respond.
A Crisis Hiding in Plain Sight
Menard’s research, drawing on more than 350 peer-reviewed studies, reveals that childhood trauma is now responsible for an estimated 511,000 American deaths per year — 1,401 per day. That makes it the nation’s #1 actual cause of death, ahead of tobacco, obesity, and firearms. It is also the #1 contributor to addiction, suicide, depression, and chronic disease.
“We’ve been treating symptoms for decades,” said Menard. “Addiction. Depression. Heart disease. Suicide. We keep naming the branches while ignoring the root. Childhood trauma is the root. And nobody is talking about it at the scale it demands.”
Why the Church Cannot Sit This Out
Approximately 65% of Americans identify as Christian, and roughly 120 million attend worship services regularly. That’s the largest volunteer infrastructure in the country. Yet Menard argues that most churches are functionally blind to the trauma sitting in their pews every week.
“Think about it,” Menard said. “Pastors counsel people in crisis every day. Small groups gather every week. Churches run food banks, recovery programs, youth ministries. They already have the relationships and the trust. What they don’t have is the awareness that childhood trauma is driving most of the pain they’re seeing — or the training to respond to it.”
A Mission Born from Loss
Menard’s urgency is personal. One of 14 children raised in Kankakee, Illinois, he lost two brothers — Adam and Patrick — to heroin addiction. Both deaths trace directly back to unresolved childhood trauma.
“When you bury your brothers, you stop asking polite questions,” Menard said. “You start demanding answers. And when you find out that the thing that killed them is killing 1,401 other people’s brothers and sisters and mothers and fathers every single day — you hit the panic button.”
From the Boardroom to the Pews
Menard brings a rare combination of credentials to this fight. A former Vice President of Worldwide Engineering at Johnson & Johnson, he holds 14 patents and has advised organizations including NASA and the United Nations. He co-founded GenSight, a global enterprise software company serving Fortune 100 clients, including Pfizer and Coca-Cola. He is also the founder and president of United Against Childhood Trauma (UACT), a 501(c)(3) nonprofit building the first comprehensive ecosystem for trauma awareness, healing, and prevention.
UACT is currently launching UACT Academy, led by Dean Dr. Glenn Schiraldi, offering trauma-responsive certification programs tailored specifically for corporate, faith-based, healthcare, and educational sectors.
About the Book
Greater Than Gravity: How Childhood Trauma Is Pulling Down Humanity presents the case that childhood trauma is the single most destructive force in American public health — and that we already have the knowledge, the infrastructure, and the moral obligation to change the trajectory. Drawing on more than 350 peer-reviewed studies and Menard’s proprietary enhanced ACEs assessment model, the book connects the dots between childhood adversity and the conditions that are killing us: addiction, heart disease, cancer, suicide, and more.
Forthcoming companion volumes include Bleeding in the Pews: The Church’s Kairos Moment and Bleeding in the Boardroom: The $2 Trillion You’ve Never Measured, targeting faith-based and corporate audiences, respectively.
For more information, please visit www.Michaeljmenard.com.
Greater Than Gravity: How Childhood Trauma Is Pulling Down Humanity
Publisher: UACT Press
Release Date: March 19, 2026
ISBN-13: 978-1968559007
Available from: https://www.amazon.com/Greater-Than-Gravity-Childhood-Humanity/dp/1968559019
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