By Bruce Levine, Counter Punch, July 19, 2019.
What variable is associated with a 12 times greater likelihood of a suicide attempt—and also doubles the likelihood of cancer, heart disease, or stroke?
In the late 1990s, the Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) Studyrevealed a stunningly powerful relationship between childhood trauma and later adult emotional difficulties and physical health problems. Two decades after the ACE Study was published, it has finally become politically correct for U.S. politicians to acknowledge its significance, and for Congress to respond with legislation. However, U.S. history tells us that even when politicians finally acknowledge an ignored truth, given their allegiance to the U.S. societal status quo, their reactions routinely neglect the most embarrassing implications of that truth—before getting to that, a summary of the ACE Study.
The ACE Study compared current adult emotional and physical health status to research subjects’ childhood traumatic experiences. The study was triggered by the 1980s observations of physician and researcher Vincent Felitti (head of Kaiser Permanente’s Department of Preventive Medicine in San Diego) who found a strong relationship between childhood sexual abuse and adult obesity.
In the mid-1990s, Felitti and Robert Anda (at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) surveyed the adverse childhood experiences of 17,431 Kaiser Permanente patient volunteers. Since the average study participant was 57 years old and their adult health status was known, the ACE Study could correlate adverse childhood experiences with adult health status decades later. Of note, this was a middle-to-upper-middle-class population—74% had attended college, and all had higher-end medical insurance.
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