By Stacey Shepard, Bakersfield.com, January 11, 2020
Children in Kern County and throughout California may be screened for childhood trauma and toxic stress during routine pediatrician visits starting this year.
The screenings are part of a new state initiative to identify adverse childhood experiences, known as ACEs, which a growing body of research shows can significantly increase the risk of poor health outcomes later in life, ranging from suicide, alcohol addiction, depression and drug use to heart disease, cancer and obesity.
The screening will ask a child's caregiver, or the child if old enough, to complete a questionnaire that asks about physical and sexual abuse, physical and emotional neglect and household dysfunction — situations like growing up in poverty or with a parent who is incarcerated, addicted to drugs or mentally ill. These events have been shown to induce stress in children, and in the absence of a caring adult to help the child cope, can eventually lead to problems later in life.
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