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NONPROFIT

ACEs high:

How Magdalena House builds resiliency
to beat the odds

Special to San Antonio Medicine

Since the 1990s, researchers at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have believed that
there is a direct link between one’s biography and one’s biology. In a hallmark study that followed
more than 17,000 people for 15 years, a group of Kaiser Permanente physicians and colleagues at
the CDC linked Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) to myriad health problems later in life.

What is the ACE test? So for example, a child who was verbally to be smokers, 12 times more likely to have
The team developed a 10-question sur- abused and had a mother who was treated attempted suicide, seven times more likely to
violently would have an ACE score of 2. be alcoholic, and 10 times more likely to
vey, wherein each question is a marker for a have injected street drugs. People with high
possible trauma experienced before the age Why does it matter? ACE scores are more likely to be violent, to
of 18. Five are personal: physical abuse, The team learned that “there is a direct have more marriages, more broken bones,
emotional abuse, sexual abuse, physical neg- more drug prescriptions, more depression,
lect and emotional neglect. Five are related link between childhood trauma and adult more auto-immune diseases, and more work
to household dysfunction: mental illness, an onset of chronic disease, as well as mental ill- absences.” Additionally, an ACE score of 4
incarcerated relative, a mother who was ness, doing time in prison, and work issues, or more means a much higher likelihood of
treated violently, substance abuse, and di- such as absenteeism.” Compared to those having heart disease, pulmonary disease and
vorce or abandonment. For each trauma ex- with an ACE score of zero, children with an sexually transmitted diseases.
perienced, one’s “score” is increased by one. ACE score of 4 or more are “twice as likely

26 San Antonio Medicine • September 2015