Dr. Harris’s career as a pediatrician changed once she discovered research conducted by Dr. Vince Felitti and Dr. Bob Anda called the “Adverse Childhood Experience Study.” The research focused on ACEs, which are adverse childhood experiences. ACEs include domestic violence, parental mental illness, parental separation, neglect (physically, emotionally, or sexually), or physical, emotional, and/or sexual abuse.
The 17,500 adults were each given a point for each traumatic experience and points were added up to create their ACE sore. The participants’ health outcomes were then studied and correlated with the ACE scores. Dr. Harris was surprised that ACEs were so common as there were at least 67% of the research pool that experienced one ACE and 12.6% who experienced four or more ACEs. Those who scored four or more, in comparison to those with an ACE score of zero, were more than twice as likely to develop chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), had twice the risk of hepatitis, quadruple the risk of depression, and twelve times as likely to be suicidal. For those who had an ACE score of seven or more, they had triple the risk of lung cancer and were more than three times as likely to develop the leading cause of death in the United States, ischemic heart disease.
[Kristine Alarcon, go to http://www.socialjusticesoluti...g-cancer-depression/]
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