Childhood Trauma
Shreffler’s project explores the generational effects of adverse experiences
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Dr. Stacy Tiemeyer holds baby Jasper as his mother Meagan Meadows swabs his cheek to test his stress hormone levels. Principal investigator Dr. Karina Shreffler says she hopes to garner additional funding to check stress hormone levels on patients’ babies.
n the shadow of a groundbreaking study that revealed childhood trauma can be directly linked to chronic disease and mental illness in adulthood, Oklahoma State UniversityTulsa researcher Dr. Karina Shreffler is exploring the biological and behavioral pathways through which the effects of childhood trauma are transmitted from one generation to the next. The 1998 Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) research study followed more than 17,000 patients and revealed that childhood trauma can lead to heart disease, cancer, diabetes, substance abuse and depression as an adult. “We are taking the ACEs study a step further by looking at the intergenerational transmission of adversity,” said Shreffler, professor of human development and family science and principal investigator of the Holistic Assessment of Tulsa’s Children’s Health (HATCH) Project. “We want to determine how your parents’ and grandparents’ exposure to childhood trauma can affect your own physical and mental health.” Shreffler, post-doctoral fellow Dr. Stacy Tiemeyer and doctoral students Meagan Meadows and Tara Wyatt interviewed patients at several medical clinics to invite them to participate in the study. Surprisingly, it wasn’t a hard sell, especially for Meadows, who was pregnant at the time. “I think that shared experience made them more comfortable in revealing their personal stories,” Meadows said. “A lot of women were open to asking questions about my pregnancy because they were interested in learning more about themselves.” Thanks in part to the face-to-face outreach, Shreffler’s team is following
24 O S U R E S E A R C H M AT T E R S STORY KIM ARCHER | PHOTOS RYAN JENSEN