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Reply to "Not all ACEs created equal"

Hi, Eric: This very much depends on the individual. The ACE Study, and subsequent population surveys such as the state BRFSS ACE surveys and the Philadelphia Urban ACE Study, look at the effect of ACEs on a population level. In the ACE Study, they found that no one type of ACE has any more deleterious effect than any other.

But on an individual basis, someone's experience of divorce may be much more profound than their physical abuse. It may take people decades of peeling the onion to realize that neglect had a much more profound effect on their lives than sexual abuse.

So, trying to determine which of the ACEs does more damage than any of the others is counter-productive in that it takes us to the place that our society is stuck in now -- the Whac-a-Mole approach to childhood maltreatment.

There's more on that here -- Childhood violence and the Whac-a-Mole effect.

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