The connection between childhood trauma and poor adult health will get some needed and welcome attention in 2017.
If you haven’t heard about ACEs, which stands for Adverse Childhood Experiences, you may soon. Two efforts to battle ACEs, also called toxic stress, are underway:
- Starting Feb. 1, pediatricians and other health care providers performing routine child health screenings will need to ask about abuse, mental illness, violence or substance abuse in the home. The policy affects roughly 1 million Michigan kids who are covered through publicly funded insurance programs.
- A new nonprofit initiative, headed by Rick Murdock of Charlotte, who just stepped down from a health insurance trade association, will raise awareness about toxic stress and how to counteract it.
Children who grow up in chaotic households — witnessing violence or suffering abuse for example — are far more likely to suffer from poor mental health, substance abuse and incarceration as adults, according to studies that date back to 1995. The work was done by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and Kaiser Permanente. The survey has been replicated at the state level, including Michigan.
[For more of this story, written by Judy Putnam, go to http://www.lansingstatejournal...ult-health/96116596/]
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