Childhood and our adult mental health

What is the relationship between our childhood and our adult mental health?

• physical abuse
• verbal abuse
• sexual abuse
• physical neglect
• emotional neglect.

• a parent or guardian who is alcoholic
• a mother who is the victim of domestic violence
• a family member in jail
• a family member diagnosed with a mental illness
• the loss of a parent through divorce, death or abandonment.

Each factor is given a score of one, and so a person's ACE score becomes very clear. For example, an adult survivor of sexual abuse whose mother was the victim of domestic violence and whose father was an alcoholic would have an ACE score of three. Any of us might try this scale for ourselves and calculate our own ACE score. This might be a distressing exercise, but it might be a useful one nonetheless.

The question is, what impact does the ACE score have on adult wellness? The answer is a complex, but compelling one.

The ACE is a number used for correlation. It is nothing more and nothing less. It does not tell us anything about causes or cures. Nevertheless, the ACE evidence is of a “strong graded relationship between the breadth of exposure to abuse or household dysfunction during childhood and multiple risk factors for several leading causes of death in adults". These causes include heart disease, cancer, chronic lung disease, fractures and liver disease, and these hazards are not secondary to smoking or alcohol use alone. Instead, the researchers suggest they have found a real and independent correlation between childhood traumas and some of the major health problems seen in adult life. 

So what about the relationship between adverse childhood experience and mental distress? The answer is that ACE is a risk factor for mental health difficulty. Estimates differ, but the literature suggests that ACE events are three times more likely in those who have a major mental health problem, such as schizophrenia or bipolar disorder. Clearly, ACE is a significant number, but what does it really tell us?

Everyone agrees that ACE levels correlate with the emergence of serious physical and mental health problems in adulthood. The higher the ACE score, the greater the likelihood of physical and mental health problems, and even early death. The evidence supports the belief that childhood experience is important to our adult wellbeing. The question is whether childhood adversity is a determinant of adult ill-health or just a factor. 

The truth is that three quarters of adult mental health needs emerge before the age of 25, and this supports the conclusion that childhood is an important time for the development of our wellbeing. But other data suggest that a combination of factors influence our chances of remaining well.

The ACE story is not the only story and it’s not simple. Nothing is. A number of important caveats need to be heard.

Childhood trauma and losses, such as those described by ACE events, do not cause mental health problems or early death. Most people with ACE neither develop mental health difficulties nor die young. Those with high ACE scores who develop poor physical and mental health may be disadvantaged for many other reasons as well.

We still do not fully understand the origins of poor health but we know this: the origins of illness are not linear. The successful pursuit of wellness is complicated by genetic effects and many other environmental factors. ACE is just one of these factors, even though it appears to be an important one. Childhood adversity is a challenge, but not a determinant of adult wellbeing.

The emphasis is rightly on reducing childhood adversity, so-called ACE events, in the community, in order to improve the overall population health. This is very understandable, but, even if all ACE events could be removed, illness, mental distress and early death would still occur, and, in the majority of these people, adversity would not have been a factor. The eradication of ACEs, even if this was possible, would not solve or prevent mental distress for many.

In any case, the eradication of ACE events is not a realistic prospect. Meaningful healthcare proposals need to be based on facts, not dreams. The ACE events are simply 10 stress factors that emerged from this study in a large primary care setting. We are still struggling to reduce the volume of clinical factors contributing to ACE, such as mental health problems and addiction. We must accept that violence and family breakdown and the experience of other loss in childhood is not going to go away. We are human. ACE events are not the only childhood traumas. Stress upon our youth will always exist to some degree. 

Our health service responses cannot depend on wishing childhood adversity would just disappear. Prevention strategies should recognise the importance of ACE events, but we also need to understand that childhood is a time that frequently includes a degree of stress and trauma. A meaningful plan for wellness cannot rest on primary prevention alone.

Our childhood is valuable, but it is not the only human value we possess. That is why we need to build resilience and still to provide real help for those in distress or difficulty. We must remember that being well is also about getting well again.

Tags:   Children Wellbeing