The impact of adverse childhood experiences on adolescent health risk indicators in a community sample.

Abstract

Objective: Despite growing awareness of the high prevalence of adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) in community samples of adolescents, little work has examined the impact of ACEs on adolescence and well-being during this critical period of development. Much research has focused on retrospective reports of ACEs by adults and adult physical and mental health, finding that ACEs contribute to a range of diseases and mental health disorders in adulthood. This study examined differences in self-reported mental health, nonsuicidal self-injury, suicidality, violence, and substance use between adolescents without self-reported history of ACEs, youth with one self-reported ACE, and youth with self-reported multiple (2 or more) ACEs. Method: The sample included 1,532 adolescents who completed the Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance Survey in their local high schools. By local consensus, this national survey was augmented with questions exploring prevalence of 11 commonly identified ACEs. Results: After controlling for age, gender, and race, youth with multiple ACEs reported 3 to 15 times the odds of a range of negative health experiences. Conclusions: Findings indicate a serious burden of ACEs on adolescent social emotional well-being. This study did not include youth in out of school placements or who were not present the day the survey was given, and thus represent youth who may benefit from universal prevention and intervention programs. Universal screening of ACEs and health-related outcomes suggests that reporting multiple ACEs is strongly related to a wide range of mental health, violence, and substance use histories.

Are Adverse Childhood Experiences Associated With Being in the System of Care?

“…We found that the use of psychosocial care by adolescents was more likely when experiencing an accumulation of ACE (three or more) than when experiencing no, one or two ACE. This is in line with recent research, showing an accumulation of ACE to have a deleterious effect on the mental health of adolescents (Bevilacqua et al, 2021;Meeker et al, 2021). Previously, we reported a similar dose-response association between ACE and emotional and behavioral problems (Lackova Rebicova et al, 2020).…”

“…To summarize, the previous studies have mostly explored the association of ACE with adolescent mental health and/or enrolment in care for mental health problems in general (Lackova Rebicova et al, 2019;LaBrenz et al, 2020;Paclikova et al, 2020;Meeker et al, 2021). Evidence is lacking on the potential dose-response association between ACE and the use of psychosocial care.…”

Adolescents’ academic achievement, mental health, and adverse behaviors: Understanding the role of resilience and adverse childhood experiences

“…These results are also consistent with studies showing that a higher number of ACEs has an effect on increasing risk behaviours and illness in adulthood (Bellis et al, 2014b). For example, Meeker et al (2021) found a correlation between ACEs score and an increased likelihood of risk behaviours/conditions (Meeker et al, 2021). The study by Chartier et al (2010) found that respondents who reported four or more ACEs had a 172% increased likelihood of developing comorbidities/conditions compared to those reporting no history of ACEs.…”

“…Adolescents living in low-income homes or in unsafe communities are more likely to suffer from the effects of ACEs (Bethell et al, 2014). ACEs can have a negative impact on an adolescent's health and educational progress, including an increased risk for low academic achievement, learning difficulties, grade retention (Duke, 2020), low resilience (Freeny et al, 2021;Morgan et al, 2022), risk behaviour (Meeker et al, 2021), suicidal thoughts (Bellis et al, 2014a;Cluver et al, 2015;Li et al, 2021), sexual activity at an early age, and unplanned pregnancy (Chiang et al, 2021). Additionally, exposure to ACEs can lead to negative consequences in adulthood, including chronic illness and reduced productivity, especially when the ACEs are cumulative or chronic (Thompson et al, 2012).…”

Adverse Lifelong Experiences in Portuguese People Living With HIV: A Retrospective Study

“…Adverse childhood experiences are also associated with a twofold to fourfold increase in drug use in adolescence and an increased risk of alcohol or drug use in adulthood (Dube et al, 2003). Consistently, other studies revealed that ACEs are a significant predictor of alcohol and drug use in adolescence (Meeker et al, 2021; Musa et al, 2018) and in adulthood (Hughes et al, 2017), especially of IDU (Hughes et al, 2017). A meta-analysis estimating the prevalence of childhood trauma among people with substance use disorder found the occurrence of each subtype of childhood trauma across all substance use disorder samples to vary from 31% for sexual abuse or emotional neglect to 38% for emotional abuse.…”