The Largest Study of Its Kind

ACE stands for Adverse Childhood Experiences. The ACE Study stands for you and me. The study was the largest of its kind and revealed that there are true costs associated with growing up in an alcoholic environment, and I don't mean emotional costs (we already know that's true), but monetary and societal costs, too.

In this post I'm going to highlight some of the findings of the ACE Study, based on a public document I recently downloaded from the National Association for Children of Alcoholic's website, and which you can also read here ACE Study!

The ACE Study took place over a long period, ten years, and included over 17,000 participants making it the largest study of its kind both in its size and in its scope of information collected.

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What are adverse childhood experiences? Experiences considered adverse are child or spousal abuse, neglect of the children, the witnessing of domestic violence, growing up around alcohol abuse or abuse of other substances, mental illness, or of crime taking place within the home or brought into the home. Adverse experiences are often interconnected, of course. Where you find abuse, or criminal behavior, you'll find addiction. Based on how inter-related adverse experiences are, the study advises that the discovery of one (that a child is being neglected) should trigger a closer look -- that is, doctors or therapists should make sure to search out more issues in order to better help the individual and to help the individual understand the complexity of their situation.

The study will have power. With such a large group of subjects over such a long period of time, it's very compelling that particular, common health issues were identified. I hope that this means that doctors, when seeing a child for his or her annual physical exam, will ask questions aimed at digging out the truth about the child's home environment. School nurses should also be conscious of a child's home life as it relates to their physical health.

The fact is, the 17,000+ participants in the study had ailments, diseases, tendencies, risks, and behaviors in common. This means that the medical community should be able to do a better job, going forward, of helping to prevent ailments that could be potentially fatal to children and adults who grew up in alcoholic homes.

Anyone who grew up with adverse experiences is at greater risk for the following:

poor overall health;
likelihood of teen pregnancy;
likelihood of smoking cigarettes;
tendency for alcohol abuse;
tendency for drug use and abuse;
early sexual activity and unsafe sex;
problematic mental health;
difficulty maintaining stable relationships;
difficulty with consistently good performance at work;
a tendency to re-engage in other abusive or adverse situations and environments

Children who grow up in alcoholic homes are at increased risk of:

heart disease;
chronic lung disease;
liver disease;
suicide;
injuries;
HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases;
and "other risks for the leading causes of death"

Essentially, increased mortality.

Something that's important to note is that the folks who were studied for the ACE Study weren't living in poverty or on the fringes. Nope. The folks who comprised this study were predominantly middle-class and well-educated. "We found that adults who reported any single category of adverse childhood experiences were likely to have suffered multiple other categories during childhood."

The findings of the study are so important. But, it is not going to do any of us, nor future children of alcoholics, any good if we don't take action to intercept these health risks before they destroy one's body. The course of action that follows this study is even more important than the findings. "The effects of ACE are long-term, powerful, cumulative, and likely to be invisible to health care providers, educators, social service organization, and policy makers because the linkage between cause and effect is concealed by time, the inability to "see" the process of neurodevelopment, and because effects of the original traumatic insults may not become manifest until much later in life."

Alcoholism can be an invisible act. The effects of alcoholism can be, too -- we all know that as children of alcoholics we were voiceless, invisible, and in the shadows of what was normal.

Now that the data are in, that invisibility must become visibility! Health care providers MUST begin asking smart questions of their patients and start preventing fatal diseases that children of alcoholics are more prone to.

For now, for you and I, we must be sure we're making ourselves and our doctors aware of our health risks (those listed above), so that we do what's in our power to prevent as many high-risk behaviors and diseases as we possibly can.

"With this information comes the responsibility to use it" -- from the ACE study.

To know these facts and to ignore them is to propagate the disease.

--ae

Comments

[Kaci]

I can see increased mortality. I've tended to go the complete opposite of my alcoholic father; leading the goody tush shoes life, but am diabetic too. Of course, as I am in my 30's, I am now fighting the adverse emotional affects ... tis interesting everything that is out & thanks for all the info.

Powerful stuff, great Blog thanks.