Adverse childhood experiences

So that's really what I want to focus on.

And I'm sure a lot of your listeners are familiar with the Adverse Childhood Experiences Study, called the ACES study for short.

And if you haven't heard of it, really what it is is 10,000 people, Kaiser Permanente and the CDC looked at 10,000 people and did a little survey.

That's really all they did.

How do we draw a direct correlation correlation between that and getting diabetes when you're 42 or heart disease at 51.

But we noticed that that was the case.

The more adverse childhood experiences, the more likelihood that somebody was to experience higher levels of disease.

Now, there's a couple explanations here, and I don't think that they're separate or inconsistent.

I thought that would be a more powerful energy to help me.

But ultimately, the work that Martha and I did when we were writing the book and the research that we did, the ACEs research, the Adverse Childhood Experiences research that was done by the CDC and Kaiser Permanente and started to really look at the moments at work that upset us It became very clear that there's a huge opportunity for people to help become aware, rather than staying in that victim, villain, martyr role, to actually start moving into a place of their own leadership, leadership of ourselves, not leadership of other people.

And that's when the magic happens.

When we start to release the hold that we give everybody else to have on our worth, that's when we can start to show up and perform and enjoy and have fun and spend a lot less time worrying about our image or what people think about us.

That's a trigger for me as well.

One thing I really want to get into, which I know you have a lot to talk about is ACEs.

So for people listening who don't know what that means, can you explain what ACE stands for and why it's such an important concept for people to understand?

ACEs or ACEs are trauma that occurs in childhood and there are three main categories, and actually there's a fourth category that research is bringing to the forefront right now.

The first category is abuse.

Have you been physically or sexually abused or even emotionally abused? And the next category is neglect.

Is there someone that you live with who has a mental health problem? Do you live with someone with alcohol or drug issues? Those kinds of things are very traumatic to children.

And then the fourth area that people are really looking at now are more environmental? Do you live in extreme poverty? Do you live in a neighborhood where there is a lot of violence? Are you homeless? Those kinds of things are extremely traumatic because they actually encompass multiple other categories too.

What is well supported? The broad link between early adversity and later problems.

The ACE test, Adverse Childhood Experience Research.

So the moderate claim, adversity raises risk, stands.

The strong claim, all addiction is trauma, doesn't necessarily stand.

And they carry, you know, psychological impact, which I think should be a first priority.

We have a well-documented study through the CDC in the U.S. from a couple of decades ago with, I believe, over 17,000 participants known as the Adverse Childhood Experiences Study.

And though it's a little bit dated, it gave us a really good foundational beginning understanding of childhood stress and trauma and the impact of that.

And of 10 known ACEs, adverse childhood experiences, separation and divorce is one.

And we're excited to share with you from both our personal experiences and our professional knowledge what it truly means to be attachment-focused, trauma-informed, and how we can help children impacted by early childhood trauma.

And today we have an amazing special guest in the studio with us, and I hope that you all have heard of the landmark Adverse Childhood Experiences survey and the work of its principal investigator and co-founder, Dr. Robert Anda.

Thank you for joining us today, Dr. Anda.

Thank you.

His research involved a variety of areas, including disease surveillance, behavioral health, mental health and disease, cardiovascular disease, and childhood determinants of health.

He has more than 200 publications and received multiple awards and recognition for scientific achievements.

He played the principal role in the design and publication of the Adverse Childhood Experiences Study, or the ACE Study, as some of you may know it.

Findings from the ACE Study have been presented at congressional briefings and numerous conferences around the world.

Yes.

One of the psychological tests, which I'll talk about a little bit later, uh, is called the Adverse Childhood Experiences, uh, Measure.

And that's-

Mm-hmm

So, ACE is...

Adverse childhood experiences.

Yes.

And I purposely selected that number because then it allowed whatever was the worst thing in somebody else's mind to say, oh, well, she didn't experience that.

way? Can you spell that out? Like how the leading cause of death for women is men?

I think it's a little bit of generalization, right? But if you read through the study by the Violence Policy Center, they do a review on women killed by men annually, which Alaska generally ranks number one.

And just showing that whether it is direct homicide or trauma-related illnesses, you know, including violence, heart disease that they can now attribute to trauma and adverse childhood experiences, that the generalization is between all of those causes, men are at the root of it for a lot of women.

And again, that is very oversimplifying it.