This edition of the PTSD Research Quarterly is the first in an occasional series on the epidemiology of trauma around the world. Although there are relatively few general-population studies of trauma and PTSD in Latin America (not reviewed here), a substantial body of work on disasters or political violence exists.  The Americas have been vulnerable to catastrophic earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, hurricanes, floods, and other natural disasters. Latin America has also experienced horrific levels of political violence since 1970 (peaking in the 1980s) due to war, insurgencies, counterinsurgencies, and other civil conflicts. The violence has taken many terrifying forms, including massacres and burnings of villages, torture, rapes of women, and ubiquitous “disappearances.”