Adverse Childhood Experiences

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Adverse childhood experiences known as the ACE Study, was developed to determine whether childhood events had long-term health consequences, which has important implications for Healthy People 2020 Policy planning, as well as for key social work roles in disease prevention. (Larkin, Felitti, Anda, 2014). Based on the Michael’s case he has experienced six ACEs, child abuse that was both emotional and physical, alcohol abuse, single parent home, working class, and lack of support/closeness with family. Some studies suggest that the experience of four or more ACEs is a threshold above which there is a particular higher risk of negative physical and mental health outcomes. (Sacks, Murphey, Moore, 2014) Early life stress, including neglect and abuse, …show more content…

The correlation of child abuse and youth runaway are good examples of how the excessive drinking of Michael’s mother and her verbal/physical abuse led him to a pattern of running away from home since. This behavior not only led to him becoming homeless, but it also played a role in Michael feeling victimized by the police due to his economic status. It is safe to assume Michael’s behavior of running away and dropping out of high school is a positive correlation of the consequences and disadvantages of having four or more ACEs. These behavioral patterns Michael way of dealing with toxic stress at home and coping with the lack of support and closeness he was missing from his …show more content…

ACEs is a great blueprint for preventing health risk behaviors and non-infectious diseases in adults. This type of prevention teaches individuals how mind-body practices can help families cope with toxic stressors and adversity. This can also contribute to stopping intergenerational cycles of abuse, neglect and household dysfunctions. (Finkelhor, Shattuck, Turner, & Hamby, 2012) argue that research using the ACE Study model has some important limitations, in part because of the retrospective way in which data on childhood adversities have been gathered. The average age of respondents when they supplied information about their childhood experiences was 55 to 57 years. As a result, it is hard to be certain, particularly from such a remote vantage, whether it is these particular childhood experiences or unmeasured covariates that are the most important predictors. This can be a major limitation in determining whether or not adverse childhood experiences played a factor in older adults age or if other variables play a factor in health risk behaviors and non-infectious

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