Snohomish County Children's Commission

The Adverse Childhood Experiences Survey
(ACES) Study is one of the largest
investigations ever conducted on the links
between childhood maltreatment and later-
life health and well-being.

Childhood abuse, neglect, and exposure to
other traumatic stressors called adverse
childhood experiences (ACE) are common.
Almost two-thirds of study participants -
screened for physical, sexual or emotional
abuse, neglect, or growing up in a
household with a mentally ill, depressed or
suicidal person, or a drug-addicted or alcoholic family member, or the loss of a parent
to death or divorce, or an incarcerated family member or witnessing domestic violence
- reported at least one ACE, and more than one in five reported three or more ACEs.

Short- and long-term outcomes of these childhood exposures include a multitude of
health and social problems. The ACE Study uses the ACE Score, which is a count of
the total number of adverse childhood experiences respondents reported. The score is
used to assess the total amount of stress during childhood and has demonstrated
that as the number of adverse childhood experiences increase, the risk for the
following health problems also increases in a strong and graded fashion:

• Alcoholism and alcohol abuse
• Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD)
• Depression
• Fetal death
• Health-related quality of life
• Illicit drug use
• Ischemic heart disease (IHD) liver disease
• Risk for intimate partner violence
• Multiple sexual partners
• Sexually transmitted diseases (STDs)
• Smoking
• Suicide attempts
• Unintended pregnancies

Additionally, the ACE Study has also demonstrated the ACE Score has a strong and
graded relationship to health-related behaviors and outcomes during childhood and
adolescence, including early initiation of smoking, sexual activity, illicit drug use,
adolescent pregnancies, and suicide attempts. As the number of adverse childhood
experiences increase, the number of co-occurring conditions increase.

Although less than 3% of all abused children become physically disabled as a result of
the injuries they sustain from maltreatment, adverse childhood experiences drive
Snohomish County's health outcomes and healthcare costs, special education needs,
rates of school failure, intergenerational patterns of high-cost social problems, and
caseloads for the most severe social problems.

The bottom line: these findings, coupled with evidence that the impact of major
childhood adversities persist well into adulthood, point to a critical need for prevention
and intervention strategies targeting early adverse experiences and their mental
health consequences.

To learn more about ACES, click the pyramid at the top of this page to go directly to
the CDC ACES website or download any of the research papers linked on the top left
of this page.

(Text for this page came primarily from http://www.cdc.gov/nccdphp/ACE/index.htm.)