“The Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) Study is a decade-long and ongoing study designed to examine the childhood origins of many of our nation’s leading health and social problems. The Study represents collaboration between the Nation’s leading prevention agency, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the Kaiser Health Plan’s Department of Preventive Medicine in San Diego, CA.
The Key concept underlying the Study is that stressful or traumatic childhood experiences such as abuse, neglect, witnessing domestic violence, or growing up with alcohol or other substance abuse, mental illness, parental discord, or crime in the home (which we termed adverse childhood experiences—or ACE’s) are a common pathway to social, emotional, and cognitive impairments that lead to increased risk of unhealthy behaviors, risk of violence or re-victimization, disease, disability and premature mortality. We now know from breakthroughs in neurobiology that ACE’s disrupt neurodevelopment and can have lasting effects on brain structure and function—the biologic pathways that likely explain the strength of the finding from the ACE Study.
We found that ACE’s are common, even in a relatively well-educated population of patients enrolled in one of the Nation’s leading HMOs. More than 1 in 4 grew up with substance abuse and two-thirds had at least one ACE! More than 1 in 10 had 5 or more ACE’s! And we found that ACE’s are highly interrelated. In order to assess the relationship of the ACE’s to health and social problems we developed the ACE Score, which is a count of the number of ACE’s designed to assess their cumulative impact on childhood development and therefore, their impact on a variety of health and social priorities in our country.”
Robert F. Anda, MD, MS, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
Some of the outcomes arising from experiencing ACE’s that are documented in other fields of human behavior and studies include: depression, poor impulse control, anxiety disorders, low self-esteem, lack of self-confidence, misplaced anger, disassociation from one’s body, the inability to trust feelings and persons in authority, and more. Often these being states fuel maladaptive behaviors that are used as remedies and solutions for emotional pain, such as substance use, obesity, process addictions (work, helping, over care) and a wide range of other possible addictive behaviors such as pornography addiction, computer and internet addiction, etc.
