Blog

I was first inspired to create a fact sheet summarizing the effects of adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) after reading a comment in “Got Your ACE score?” A reader wished she had a form to give her doctor that documented the vast body of evidence explaining how early trauma increases risk for chronic physical and mental health conditions and much more. I could relate.

Parenting can be stressful - and this stress may be influencing the DNA methylation of African American mothers, finds a new study led by NYU Rory Meyers College of Nursing published in the Journal of Clinical and Translational Science. Stress can contribute to a range of health problems, including high blood pressure and heart disease - health issues that are particularly pervasive among African American women. The stress that parents feel in their roles adds to overall maternal stress...

"While often a silent and invisible issue, childhood trauma is pervasive, and has profound individual, societal and economic impacts. Many forms of childhood trauma exist, including child physical and sexual abuse. Given the prevalence, impact and availability of prevention and intervention approaches, child abuse deserves the same level of awareness, policy priority and investment as is directed to other issues of significant public health importance. The complex issue of child abuse...

Here is a powerpoint presentation by Dr. R.J. Gillespie of The Children's Clinic. Read here how The Children's Clinic is using ACEs science.

Only about 50 percent of adolescents with depression get diagnosed before reaching adulthood. And as many as 2 in 3 depressed teens don't get the care that could help them. "It's a huge problem," says Dr. Rachel Zuckerbrot , a board-certified child and adolescent psychiatrist and associate professor at Columbia University. To address this divide, the American Academy of Pediatrics has issued updated guidelines this week that call for universal screening for depression. [For more of this...

Infographic courtesy of the RYSE Center, Richmond, California Using data from the 2016 National Survey of Children's Health , this report analyzed the prevalence of 8 specific adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) nationally and across states. The researchers also looked at ACE prevalence differences by race/ ethnicity and geographical regions. The most common ACEs were those associated with economic hardship and divorce or separation of a parent or guardian. Researchers found that black and...

Dr. Suzanne Frank has known about the impact of childhood adversity on young lives for decades. She’s seen the fallout in the faces of young people huddled in beds at a children’s shelter where she worked years ago. She’s seen it as the regional child abuse services and champion for the Permanente Medical Group. And she’s seen it in hospital examination rooms where, as a member of the Santa Clara County’s Sexual Assault Response Team, she’s been called in to examine shell-shocked children...

A statewide coalition of groups and people who want West Virginians to understand the connection between childhood trauma and health outcomes later, such as addiction, released a report last week that showed traumatic childhood experiences are common among West Virginians. The report found that 55.8 percent of West Virginia adults reported at least one “adverse childhood experience,” with the most common being substance abuse in the household, and the authors noted that people who report...

Boot-strapping types who believe that surmounting a difficult childhood is mainly a matter of will may be perplexed by an anecdote near the beginning of Nadine Burke Harris’s new book, “The Deepest Well: Healing the Long-Term Effects of Childhood Adversity.” In it, the pediatrician describes a 7-year-old boy named Diego, who showed up at her Bay Area clinic looking like an undersized 4-year old. He had been referred by a school nurse for suspected ADHD . But Burke Harris also noted that her...

How do you screen families to determine whether they have enough to eat or if they feel safe in their homes or communities without alienating them? In this new brief, authors Dr. Renee Boynton-Jarrett and JoHannah Flacks describe strength-based approaches to screening for health related social needs.

Rebecca Ives, M.D. of UC Davis Pediatrics Residency Program gives a detailed and thorough description of the ACE study and how to integrate it into pediatric settings. Take a listen! LINK HERE

How do physicians find their way to learning about the landmark ACE study ? For this urologist, it was an emergency procedure on a teen who had suffered a gunshot wound. Please read this story in the journal Contemporary Pediatrics and share your own story here in Aces in Pediatrics.