How childhood trauma affects health across a lifetime?
Asked by Anonymous
Answered
05/03/2021
Childhood trauma not only has short-term effects but long-term effects as well. These long-term effects can affect health across a lifetime. One of the most well-known and biggest studies ever done to research the connection between childhood trauma and health later in life was done by the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (the CDC) and the Kaiser Permanente’s Health Appraisal Clinic in San Diego. This study was called the Adverse Childhood Experiences Study, or the ACEs Study. ACEs, or adverse childhood experiences, include neglect, being sexually abused, being physically abused, having a family member who was in prison, and so on. Your ACEs score is the total number of adverse childhood experiences you have had before 18 years of age. This study concluded that the higher your score, the more likely you would have negative health consequences. Some of the negative health consequences that were found to be possible from the ACEs study were substance abuse, alcoholism, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), depression, fetal death, risky sexual behavior, sexually transmitted infections, adolescent pregnancy, unwanted pregnancies, beginning sex and using nicotine at an earlier age than those with lower ACE scores, and higher risk for intimate partner violence.
A Ted Talk I highly recommend is linked here:
In this Ted Talk, pediatrician Dr. Nadine Burke Harris discusses many of the issues from childhood trauma. Victims of childhood trauma are at higher risk for seven of the ten leading causes of death in the United States! Dr. Burke Harris pleads that we take a few steps to intervene and prevent childhood trauma. First, if one is a victim of childhood trauma, she urges them to get help. She states that you will not just “get over” this trauma. I wholeheartedly agree with this statement. Whenever you face your trauma in therapy, you are improving your mental health, thus improving your physical health. Dr. Burke Harris also speaks of prevention in this video. If you are able, get involved by volunteering with children at risk or donating to causes that work with these populations.
