Vincent J Felitti’s research while affiliated with University of California, San Diego and other places

Background: The relationship of health risk behavior and disease in adulthood to the breadth of exposure to childhood emotional, physical, or sexual abuse, and household dysfunction during childhood has not previously been described. Methods: A questionnaire about adverse childhood experiences was mailed to 13,494 adults who had completed a standardized medical evaluation at a large HMO; 9,508 (70.5%) responded. Seven categories of adverse childhood experiences were studied: psychological, physical, or sexual abuse; violence against mother; or living with household members who were substance abusers, mentally ill or suicidal, or ever imprisoned. The number of categories of these adverse childhood experiences was then compared to measures of adult risk behavior, health status, and disease. Logistic regression was used to adjust for effects of demographic factors on the association between the cumulative number of categories of childhood exposures (range: 0-7) and risk factors for the leading causes of death in adult life. Results: More than half of respondents reported at least one, and one-fourth reported ≥2 categories of childhood exposures. We found a graded relationship between the number of categories of childhood exposure and each of the adult health risk behaviors and diseases that were studied (P < .001). Persons who had experienced four or more categories of childhood exposure, compared to those who had experienced none, had 4- to 12-fold increased health risks for alcoholism, drug abuse, depression, and suicide attempt; a 2- to 4-fold increase in smoking, poor self-rated health, ≥50 sexual intercourse partners, and sexually transmitted disease; and a 1.4- to 1.6-fold increase in physical inactivity and severe obesity. The number of categories of adverse childhood exposures showed a graded relationship to the presence of adult diseases including ischemic heart disease, cancer, chronic lung disease, skeletal fractures, and liver disease. The seven categories of adverse childhood experiences were strongly interrelated and persons with multiple categories of childhood exposure were likely to have multiple health risk factors later in life. Conclusions: We found a strong graded relationship between the breadth of exposure to abuse or household dysfunction during childhood and multiple risk factors for several of the leading causes of death in adults.

This article describes the origins of the Division of Health Appraisal in Southern California Permanente Medical Group's San Diego Department of Preventive Medicine, which provided a comprehensive and nontraditional array of preventive medicine services to more than 50,000 members a year. The fusion of Health Appraisal with the Positive Choice risk abatement services provided the origins of the now internationally recognized Adverse Childhood Experiences Study and its major implications for the outcomes and costs of medical care.The Health Appraisal system fulfilled the medical evaluation and preventive needs of most adult patients outside of the traditional and costly sickness-care system, provided rapid access to medical care, has been medically reliable and appreciated by patients, and demonstrably reduced the cost of medical care while providing each evaluated member with a comprehensive medical record in a specialized database. The unexpected resistance to this concept's further implementation deserves exploration and understanding given the current problems in medical care.This article will discuss: Health Appraisal development and function; the Health Appraisal process; perspectives on the Health Appraisal product, outcomes, and benefits; and the Positive Choice system that linked Health Appraisal to prevention activities. A proposal for program expansion and the major economic implications of certain Adverse Childhood Experiences Study findings also will be discussed.

Case: A senior member of a 5-person pediatric group recently heard a presentation about the Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) study. He decided to present the study to his colleagues with the intention of incorporating a similar screening tool for ACE in their practice.The ACE study assessed adverse child experiences recalled by 17,000 adult patients who were participating in a comprehensive medical evaluation at a large Health Maintenance Organization. The ACE questionnaire assessed emotional, physical, and sexual abuse; emotional and physical neglect; mother treated violently; household substance abuse; household mental abuse; parental separation or divorce; and incarcerated household members (http://www.acestudy.org/yahoo_site_admin/assets/docs/ACE_Calculator-English.127143712.pdf).Thirty-six percent of the participants did not endorse any ACE. One, 2 or 3 ACE's were endorsed by 26%, 16%, and 9.5%, respectively. Four or more ACEs were endorsed by 12% of the cohort. The study found that "the major risk factors for causes of death in adults, smoking, alcohol abuse, obesity, physical inactivity, use of illicit drugs, promiscuity, and suicide attempts, were all increased by ACEs. Compared with persons with an ACE score of 0, those with an ACE score of 4 or more were twice as likely to be smokers, 12 times more likely to have attempted suicide, 7 times more likely to be alcoholic, and 10 times more likely to have injected street drugs" (2).When he researched the ACE study further, the pediatrician discovered that there was a modified form of the ACE study questions available for parents of children and adolescents. The members of the pediatric practice were intrigued by the reported relationship between ACEs and the high prevalence of chronic physical and mental health conditions and economic outcomes. Could this be a method for pediatricians to screen for risks of serious physical and psychiatric diseases in adult life? A brisk discussion followed about what they would do with this information if the ACE screening questions were used in their practice. Is it an effective strategy for primary care pediatric practice?

Medical research on "adverse childhood experiences" (ACEs) reveals a compelling relationship between the extent of childhood adversity, adult health risk behaviors, and principal causes of death in the United States. This article provides a selective review of the ACE Study and related social science research to describe how effective social work practice that prevents ACEs and mobilizes resilience and recovery from childhood adversity could support the achievement of national health policy goals. This article applies a biopsychosocial perspective, with an emphasis on mind-body coping processes to demonstrate that social work responses to adverse childhood experiences may contribute to improvement in overall health. Consistent with this framework, the article sets forth prevention and intervention response strategies with individuals, families, communities, and the larger society. Economic research on human capital development is reviewed that suggests significant cost savings may result from effective implementation of these strategies.

to organize a task force to report to him on the biopsychosocial consequences of early childhood violence. In the charge, he stated, An important prevention strategy for the field must focus on the reduction in childhood violence, including childhood sexual abuse. I propose bringing together 9–10 individuals from psychiatric, medical, social science, and the criminal justice fields to put together a resource document for psychiatry, other mental health disciplines, and medicine, with the primary focus on intervention strategies to reduce childhood violence. Alerting the media on the impact of childhood violence would be a major focus of the follow-up activities. The purpose of the task force is to develop a series of recommendations to guide the APA and psychiatrists throughout the country with attention to clinical care, neurobiology, future research, child development, parenting and family concerns, schools, and contextual activities that stimulate and escalate violent and traumatic episodes. The task force may make recommendations for public education and advocacy for an integrated "trauma focus" across disparate agencies, organizations, services, and systems. The task force must examine the need for better trauma education of professionals and the inclusion of trauma and trauma-spectrum disorders as part of the routine history and differential diagnosis, respectively. Members of the task force are

Using a model of pathogenesis, the health consequences of childhood trauma are well documented. However, less is known about salutogenesis among adults who go on to survive childhood trauma. The Adverse Childhood Experiences Study data were utilized to examine the associations between modifiable behaviors (smoking abstinence and physical activity) and personal resources (attaining education and social support) with self-rated health and depressed affect among 5069 adult trauma survivors. The findings indicate that both modified behaviors and personal resources such as education level and social support are associated with positive health outcomes and reduced likelihood of depressed affect. These findings may provide insights into the health promotion paradigm for survivors of childhood trauma.