Studies show that people who score higher on the ACE assessment are at risk for higher rates of mental and physical illness later in life.
What is ACE? It stands for Adverse Childhood Experiences including things like any kind of abuse or neglect, divorce in the immediate family, alcohol and/or drug abuse in the immediate family, mental illness in the family, and parental incarceration. The ACE score is an assessment of how many of these experiences a person has had. Turns out that the more of these experiences you had as a child, the more likely you are to have health problems later in life. In other words, having these experiences as a child can raise your risk of developing physical and mental health problems as an adult.
The original study was done by the CDC (Centers for Disease Control) in collaboration with Kaiser Permanente in the 1990’s and followed the participants for 15 years.
They discovered that higher scores resulted in a higher risk, in adulthood, for mental health issues, such as depression and anxiety, behavioral problems, and even physical health issues including heart and lung diseases, autoimmune diseases, and even infections. The participants with high ACE scores were more likely to suffer from smoking and other addictions and to have attempted suicide. The researchers were surprised by two things-the correlation between high ACE scores and physical and mental illnesses, and the number of people who reported having experienced as least one ACE. It was a bit discouraging to realize that childhood traumas are fairly common.
Now if you’re realizing you have experienced some ACE’s, don’t panic. Having these experiences merely raises your risk for these conditions, it doesn’t guarantee that you will get them. But It’s important to know about this connection because we can then do something about it. One thing this research tells us is that the health of the mind and body are connected and affect one another. And we can help adults who have had these experiences, with mental and physical health interventions.
If you want to learn more about ACE’s, see the references below. If you are interested in learning how all of this might affect you, call me at 405.517.4442 to discuss whether therapy or health coaching with me might be helpful to you.
References
Jane Ellen Stevens post on Acestoohigh.com
acesconnection.com
CDC.gov
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