OVERCOMING EVER YDAY ABUSE By Kristen Munson
T
wenty years ago, a landmark public health study tied childhood abuse and household dysfunction to some of the leading causes of death and disease in adults. The
findings revealed the cumulative effect of past scars: the more
trauma a person experienced during their youth, the more likely
those surveyed were to attempt suicide, develop substance abuse disorders, or be diagnosed with depression, cancer, and heart disease later in life.
26 UTAHSTATE I SPRING 2018
“What happened in childhood was casting an extraordinarily long shadow,� Vincent Felitti, lead author of the Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) Study, told the Washington Post upon publishing the results. In the decades since, research has backed the original ACE study, which was the first large-scale investigation into how childhood exposures affected lifelong health risks. Among the most pernicious