Adverse Childhood Experiences Study in the Spotlight
Jan 05 2010A recent article in TIME magazine puts one of the seminal pieces of research about the long-term consequences of child maltreatment in the mainstream media spotlight. In the article, “How Childhood Trauma Can Cause Obesity”, Maia Szalavitz describes the landmark Adverse Childhood Experiences study, which continues to provide evidence of the social, emotional, physical, and mental effects of negative experiences early in life.
Dr. Vincent Felitti’s discoveries began quite by accident. As an obesity researcher at Kaiser Permanente, he wondered why so many participants in his study would lose some weight, then drop out of the study before its completion. Upon further investigation, he learned that a large proportion of them had experienced certain stressful or even traumatic experiences during childhood. As he dug through the data, he found relationships between these negative experiences and a host of ailments, including but hardly limited to adult obesity. Researchers identified nine Adverse Childhood Experiences, or ACEs, that are related to negative adult outcomes:
- Recurrent physical abuse
- Recurrent emotional abuse
- Contact sexual abuse
- An alcohol and/or drug abuser in thehousehold
- An incarcerated household member
- Someone who is chronically depressed, mentally ill, institutionalized, or suicidal
- Mother is treated violently
- One or no parents
- Emotional or physical neglect
ACEs are quite common, and many people have one or more in their history. However, when children experience multiple ACEs before the age of 19, their risk for many negative outcomes increases. This is not to say that all children with multiple ACEs will experience these outcomes, but
“The connections [are] clear: compared with a person with no adverse childhood experiences, or ACEs, a person with four or more has almost double the risk of obesity. Having four or more ACEs more than doubles the risk of heart attack and stroke, and nearly quadruples the risk of emphysema. The risk for depression is more than quadrupled. Although many of these outcomes could reflect the influences of genes and other environmental influences — beyond those occurring in childhood — the tight relationship between increasing ACE numbers and increasing health risks makes the role of child trauma clear.”-TIME
The ACE study provides a compelling argument for investing in prevention of child maltreatment and other ACEs, and for building Protective Factors with families. For more information about the ACE study, check out our new research brief, part of a series of summaries of studies that are especially relevant to Strengthening Families.
