What’s Your Score?

By: Lex Morgan

Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) are a health crisis. Many people, children, adolescents and adults are living with the effects of ACEs every day and aren’t aware of it. In 1985, Dr. Vincent Felitti, a physician at Kaiser Permanente discovered ACEs. Dr. Felitti was the chief of the obesity clinic and was struggling to understand why participants who had successfully completed the program dropped out. To his surprise, participants who’d dropped out returned and had not only gained the weight they’d lost, some had gained additional weight. After some research, he found that childhood trauma was linked to clients’ weight gain. The ACEs study was discovered because he was not willing to settle for mediocre medical care. Although people from various walks of life experience ACEs, they are ever-present in inner-city and underserved communities.

• Abuse (physical, sexual, and verbal)

• Neglect (physical and emotional)

• Mental health illnesses

• Witnessing domestic violence

• Substance and/or alcohol addiction

• Incarceration (self or close family member) These are examples of ACEs categories. You or someone you know have likely been impacted by ACEs. Each ACEs category equals 1 point. Individuals with 4 or more ACEs are at higher risk of experiencing adverse health conditions. Let’s dig deeper...

• Did you know that chronic health conditions like asthma, strokes, cancer, diabetes, severe obesity and hypertension have been linked to ACEs?

• Were you aware that behavioral conditions such as ADHD have been linked to ACEs?

• ACEs also include Adverse Community Experiences and Adverse Climate Experiences. Here are a few tips to help shine a light on ACEs:

• Ask your doctor(s) if they are familiar with ACEs screenings.

• Ask how often ACEs screenings are completed.

• Ask to be screened.

What’s your score? Adults and children can be screened for ACEs. This is important to note because ACEs can be transferred from parents to children. For example, individuals who grow up in a dysfunctional home/community environments are at a higher risk of creating similar environments for their children; thus, recreating trauma and ACEs. Healing what can’t be identified is a challenge, to say the least. For this reason, ACEs must be discussed. ACEs must be healed. Additional resources & references about ACEs: The Deepest Well by Nadine Burke Harris, M.D. TED Talk - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=95ovIJ3dsNk ACES Too High - https://acestoohigh.com/aces-101/