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What’s Your ACE Score?

by Dr. Jen Bradley, Associate Professor of Applied Psychology


Trauma: when most of us hear that word, we think of innocent civilian victims of war-torn countries, immigrants on harrowing treks to freedom, victims of near-fatal violent crimes, or witnesses to mass shootings. These are categories of likely traumatic experiences, for sure. But did you know that most traumatic experiences are much more mundane, occur in the privacy of the home environment, and are inflicted on children? These traumatic experiences typically have a lifelong impact on their victims, leading to mental health problems, substance abuse, physical diseases, and shortened lifespan.

In the ‘80s, researchers Felitti and Ando, epidemiologists working for Kaiser Permanente, stumbled across a discovery that astonished them. This led them to launch the CDC/Kaiser ACEs study in the ‘90s, a longitudinal study conducted in California that examined the connection between Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) and adult health outcomes. ACEs are different types of traumatic experiences. The research was pretty simple: it just tallied the types of traumatic experiences kids had, and then compared that ACE score to the health problems the participants developed in adulthood. (If you’re like me, you now want to know what those ACE categories were. You’re in luck—you can take the ACE test here and find out for yourself!) https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2015/03/02/387007941/take-the-ace-quiz-and-learn-what-it-does-and-doesnt-mean

The higher a person’s ACE score, the higher their risk for all kinds of health problems: obesity, diabetes, depression, cancer, heart disease, stroke, COPD, and STDs. The connection isn’t 1-to-1, it is worse: every digit increase in ACE score exponentially increases a person’s risk for developing serious chronic health issues. Curious as to what the researchers found? You can learn more in detail here: https://www.ajpmonline.org/article/S0749-3797(98)00017-8/abstract

Since these results have been made available to both the general public and professional communities, treatment providers have worked to identify different elements that can improve a person’s resilience, with the goal of decreasing the severity and complexity of this developmental “life sentence.” We’ve gotten pretty good at it, too. Now we help people develop the 5 most important factors for resilience: (1) social connections, (2) resiliency skills, (3) parenting skills and knowledge about child development, (4) concrete support during times of need, and (5) emotional intelligence and social skills. Here is some great information on building resilience in a person of any age: http://buncombeaces.org/build-resilience-2/

The best thing you can do to help others, is to share this information far and wide. And of course, don’t hesitate to help yourself if this applies. Resilient is the new black. 😉

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