By Lilo H. Stainton, NJ Spotlight, July 30, 2019
Children who grow up with poverty, violence, racism, parental divorce, incarceration or drug abuse — or suffer other multiple adverse experiences as youngsters — are seven times more likely to develop alcoholism as adults, four times more likely to become juvenile offenders, and three times more likely to repeat a grade, when compared with kids who did not face these traumas.
They also have higher incidences of asthma, obesity and cancer as grown-ups, and a greater chance of dying prematurely.
The short- and long-term effects of these adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) — family- and community-based problems that impact roughly 40 percent of Garden State children — is one focus of a report released today by the New Jersey Funders ACEs Collaborative, an organization founded in the fall of 2018 to call attention to these issues.
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