Positive Childhood Experiences are protective social determinants of health factors that mitigate downstream consequences of exposure to chronic adversity and abuse specific to Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs). ACEs are defined by the CDC as potentially traumatic experiences during childhood that increase mal-adaptive and risky behaviors, negative health outcomes, and relative health care utilization throughout the lifecycle. This study examines the association between PCE scores and important socio-economic measures. A cross-sectional study using the 2021 Tennessee Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance Survey PCE module was conducted. The PCE’s module included 7 questions to assess PCE’s during childhood. The 7 PCE questions were consolidated into a measure categorized by low: 0-1 PCE, middle: 2-4 PCEs, and high: 5-7 PCEs. The association between PCE’s and three independent variables of interest were examined: income, employment status, and education. Income was defined by household income and categorized into high ($100,000+) middle ($50,000-$99,000), and low income ($0-$49,000). Education was categorized into high (graduated college or technical school), middle (graduated high school/attended college or technical school), and low education levels (did not graduate high school). Employment status was dichotomized into employed vs unemployed. Chi-square test of independence was used to investigate associations between PCE’s scores and the 3 socio-economic variables, income, employment status, and education, independently. There was a significant association between PCE score and income (P=.001). Over a quarter of individuals with a high PCE score (27%) were in the lowest income category, while 53% were in the highest income category. Of the individuals with a low PCE score 49% were in the lowest income category while 31% were in the highest income category. For individuals with a middle PCE score, 39% were in the lowest income category, while 42% were in the highest income category. The association between PCE score and education level was also significant (P=.001). Of individuals with a low PCE score 61% were employed, those with a middle PCE score 74% were employed, and of samples with a high PCE score 88% were employed. Analysis of PCE score and employment status was also significant (P=.001). Of the individuals with a low PCE score 21% were in the highest education category, of individuals with a middle PCE score 31% were in the highest education category, and of individuals with a high PCE score 41% were in the highest education category. Evidence continues to mount that PCE’s are associated with improved mental health, better social skills, and overall self-reported quality of life on an individual and population level. The findings of this study suggest that positive childhood experiences impact individuals’ ability to overcome adversity if income, education, and employment levels are accepted as proxy measure for quality of life and highlight the importance of fostering positive environments for children to prevent long term negative health, social, and economic impacts. Future research could further explore the mechanisms through which positive childhood experiences lead to positive outcomes, and the implications for interventions aimed at promoting positive childhood experiences across socio-demographic categories.

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Adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) are related to a variety of detrimental outcomes, including psychopathology and criminal activity. Adolescents and other youth who have engaged in sexually abusive behaviors are a high-risk population in which ACEs are exceptionally common and interrelated. However, the experiences of adversity faced by these youth are not homogenous, and exploring further aspects and details of ACEs may assist in better understanding the etiology of problematic outcomes such as psychopathology and criminal activity in these populations. The deleterious impact of polyvictimization may be one facet of adversity worth considering, as the persistence of maltreatment, presence of multiple perpetrators, and relationship to perpetrator(s) have been linked to poorer outcomes. Regression analyses were used to examine the relationship between ACEs and psychopathology and criminal activity in a sample of adolescents who have engaged in problematic sexual behavior. Incorporating facets of polyvictimization better explained several of such outcomes.

Adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) are stressful or traumatic events that occur during childhood that impact health and wellbeing, thus having long-lasting effects. In the context of parenting, a history of ACEs can impact a caregiver’s ability to manage stress and interfere with their ability to provide sensitive and regulated caregiving. Thankfully, there are many ways that one can foster resilience in the face of past ACEs. This study aims to help mothers combat ACEs and parenting stress by experimentally investigating the benefits of two resilience-building programs. The first is an emotion-based program that focuses on emotion regulation, self-care, and attachment theory. The second is a behavior-based program that focuses on developmental milestones and general behaviorally based parenting practices (e.g. positive reinforcement, punishment). The present project uses a pre/post/follow-up design to assess parenting stress before and after engagement in the resilience-building programs. Mothers of 3-year-old children will complete the ACEs Questionnaire, which assesses how many and what specific ACEs participants have (pre-assessment), and the Parental Stress Scale (PSS), which assesses their parenting stress (pre, post, follow up). Although statistical analyses will be conducted to examine differences in PSS scores, the ACEs Questionnaire will only be used to ensure that the sample examined is mothers with ACEs, as participants who report no ACEs will be excluded from data analysis. In addition to self-report questionnaires, participants visit the Affect, Regulation, Coping, and Health (ARCH) lab to complete moderately stressful tasks while physiological data is obtained; data from lab visits will not be analyzed in this project but will be collected since this research is a part of a larger study called the 2Gen: Feeling Better Project (2Gen) that aims to examine emotion coregulation and physiological synchrony between mothers and their three-year-old children. After the pre-assessment, participants will be randomly assigned to one of the two 8-week programs (Emotion Curriculum, Behavior Curriculum) which will be provided through electronic links to brief videos. Participants also receive binders with the video scripts, handouts, resources, and reflection questions for each week’s content. Due to being at early stages in data collection, the present project will summarize the 2Gen protocol and will simulate data using mean parenting stress values from comparable studies. That simulated data will then be analyzed using JASP, an open-source statistics software. A 2x2 factorial ANOVA will be run to compare pre and post PSS scores for the emotion and behavior-based resilience-building programs. We hypothesize that parenting stress scores will decrease for all participants; however, we anticipate this change to be greater for those who receive the emotion-based program.

OBJECTIVE: To examine association between Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) and teeth extracted due to dental caries or periodontitis among young and middle-aged US adults. METHODS: Study sample included 15,474 and 17,430 respondents aged 18-64 completing 2010 and 2012 Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS) survey respectively. Outcome was any self-reported tooth extraction due to caries or periodontitis. Primary predictor were self-reported 11 ACE answers (categorized into none, 1, 2, and 3+) before 18 years of age. Covariates included smoking, heavy alcohol consumption, diabetes, health coverage and access to dental care. Odds ratios were computed from unadjusted and adjusted logistic regression models. RESULTS: Overall ACE prevalence was 66.5% and 64.9% in BRFSS 2010 and 2012 study sample respectively. In unadjusted models we observed a graded association wherein adults reporting experienced 2 and 3+ ACE were more likely to experience tooth extractions compared to those reporting no ACE exposure. (BRFSS 2010 OR = 1.47,1.48; BRFSS 2012 OR = 1.33, 1.54 respectively; p<0.05). We found similar results in multivariate models after adjusting for covariates (BRFSS 2010 OR = 1.56,1.34; BRFSS 2012 OR = 1.36, 1.42 respectively; p<0.05). CONCLUSIONS: This study suggests potential long lasting impact of early adverse life events on oral health in young and middle adulthood. Young and middle-aged adults experiencing multiple ACE had significantly more extractions compared to adults who reported not experiencing any ACE. Multidisciplinary efforts between dentists, physicians and social therapists are needed to raise awareness about ACE as means of identifying and reducing dental health inequities. / 2020-06-13T00:00:00Z

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No description available.

Adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) are traumatic and stressful events during a person’s early life that can influence their later mental health, physical health, and wellbeing. Internalizing symptoms such as anxiety and depression are common mental health outcomes associated with ACEs. Two factors, religiosity/spirituality (R/S) and mindfulness, are possible protective factors that may help lessen the effects of ACEs on later mental health. This study hopes to examine whether R/S and mindfulness are protective factors in the relationship between ACEs from childhood and internalizing symptoms in adulthood. Further, this study examines whether the protective impact of R/S is further strengthened by an individual’s mindfulness (moderated moderation). Participants (N = 769, age M = 20.43, SD = 4.51) for this study were recruited through the SONA research platform at East Tennessee State University as a part of the REACH (Religion, Emotions, and Current Health) self-report survey. We used a retrospective measure, the Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) questionnaire, to assess childhood adversity. We used the Brief Multidimensional Measure of Religiosity and Spirituality (BMMRS) to assess current religiosity/spirituality of participants and the Five Facet Mindfulness Questionnaire (FFMQ) to assess current overall mindfulness of participants. To examine internalizing symptoms of the sample, we used the Generalized Anxiety Disorder-7 (GAD-7) questionnaire to assess anxiety symptoms, and the Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale Revised (CESD-R-20) to assess depression symptoms. The analyses for this project were conducted using the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS). Bivariate analyses for this project will be conducted using Pearson’s correlations and the moderated moderation model will be tested using the Hayes Process Macro (version 3.0, Model 3). We predict that ACEs will be related to internalizing symptoms as is commonly demonstrated in the literature, such that more ACES are associated with more symptoms of anxiety and depression. Further, we expect that both R/S and mindfulness will weaken (i.e. moderate) this relationship. Additionally, we propose that mindfulness will impact the moderating (protective) effect of R/S on this relationship, such that the protective effect of R/S is greatest for those with high levels of mindfulness.

Children naturally seek support and comfort from birth on, especially when faced with negative life events. Support that comes from the primary care givers is necessary and useful but is not always available or the only considerably influential support the child receives. Other places support could come from include peers, school resources or religious resources and beyond. Religion and the support received from faith-based groups has been used in many ways to aid in coping with experienced trauma and times of adversity. Observing the perceived religious support that children feel they have allows for the support systems in a child’s life to understand the potentially useful practices in the resilience of adverse experiences faced by youth. Focusing on the relationship between how much religious support is perceived and the number of adverse childhood experiences (ACE) scores could lead to further research endeavors on religiosity’s role in coping with trauma and adversity. It is hypothesized that the more religious socialization support perceived by participants as children, the fewer ACE scores will be reported. Data collected from the REACH (Religion, Emotions, and Current Health) survey style study of the ARCH (Affect, Regulation, Coping and Health) research lab will be used. The college aged participant’s (N = 766) responses on reflective views of support perceived during youth in faith communities using the ARCH lab adapted version Faith Activities in the Home scale (FAITHS; Lambert & Dollahite, 2010) and number of ACEs will be analyzed. The proposed analysis to be conducted is a Pearson’s r correlation using SPSS. It is expected that there will be a negative correlation where the more religious support that is perceived during childhood, the fewer ACEs will be reported. Previous research has not directly observed the relationship of retrospective religious support and ACEs, so this study could direct to new investigations of coping through religious support for children. If the results are not statistically significant, past perceived religious support may not affect ACEs directly, and would lead to other ways of investigating the relationship of coping through religious means during adverse experiences.

Fostering a Trauma Informed Mindset in the Criminal Justice System Lauren Ledford, Mary Jo Oliver M.S., Meredith Jordan, Chloe Salyer, Adam Walker, Andrea D. Clements Ph.D. The presence of early childhood adversity and trauma is disproportionately high in individuals involved with the criminal justice system compared to the non-criminally involved population. Childhood adversity and trauma is consistently linked to many adverse lifelong outcomes such as increased mortality, increased risk of mental illness, and increased risk of substance use disorder. In order to respond to this increased risk, empathy and community-wide interventions have emerged as effective means of responding and resisting re-traumatization. Community and empathy-based training of law enforcement officials may assist in understanding trauma and combatting its effects as they are often some of the first people to come in contact with individuals experiencing the effects of childhood adversity and trauma. This study sought to evaluate the effectiveness of Trauma-Informed Care (TIC) training for police officers in their ability to have knowledge of, believe to be relevant, understand, feel confident implementing, and apply TIC principles. We hypothesized knowledge, relevance, understanding, implementation confidence, and application of TIC would all increase from pre-assessment to post-assessment. As part of an initiative to increase TIC awareness and implementation, 64 police officers participated in a one-day training that began with a pre-survey and ended with a post-survey. Both surveys contained measures concerning TIC knowledge, relevance, understanding, implementation confidence, and application. The post survey also included an additional measure regarding training quality satisfaction. The sample consisted primarily of White (N = 44), middle-aged males (M = 42.27, SD = 8.588). There was a significant difference between TIC knowledge t(56) = -4.593, p<.001, d = 1.096, TIC relevance t(56) = -2.488, p = .016, d = .912, TIC understanding t(56) = -8.611, p <.001, d = 2.932, and implementation confidence t(56)= -5.942, p <.001, d = 1.326 from the pre to post assessment. However, there was not a significant difference between TIC application t(56) = -1.826, p = .073, d = .585 from pre to post assessment. The consistently significant increase in TIC scores indicate that a TIC training is an effective means of improving officer perception of trauma and willingness to implement TIC practices.