With up to 40 percent of a workforce affected by secondhand drinking (the negative impacts of a person's drinking behaviors on others), the potential of having employees with one or more adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) abounds. Not only the presence of ACEs for the employee but for the passing of ACEs along by the employee to their children.
Thus, EAPs offer a unique opportunity to include resources that can help employees screen for ACEs -- theirs and those of their children. Not only that, EAPs can create a resource center of information about ACEs and the myriad of fantastic programs in existence that can help employees treat their ACEs.
And why should employers/ EAPs care about screening for ACEs?
As I wrote in my post, Screening for Adverse Childhood Experiences | ACEs Can be Good for Business, employees experiencing ACE’s-related toxic stress impacts can impose staggering costs to the workplace related to poor work performance, absenteeism, health care, and safety risks. More importantly, the very health and quality of their lives is at stake.
According to the CDC – Kaiser ACE Study > Major Findings,
As the number of ACEs increases so does the risk for the following*:
- Alcoholism and alcohol abuse
- Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease
- Depression
- Fetal death
- Health-related quality of life
- Illicit drug use
- Ischemic heart disease
- Liver disease
- Poor work performance
- Financial stress
- Risk for intimate partner violence
- Multiple sexual partners
- Sexually transmitted diseases
- Smoking
- Suicide attempts
- Unintended pregnancies
- Early initiation of smoking
- Early initiation of sexual activity
- Adolescent pregnancy
- Risk for sexual violence
- Poor academic achievement
*This list is not exhaustive. For more outcomes see selected journal publications.
Thus, helping employees understand and screen for Adverse Childhood Experiences is profoundly important to an employee’s overall well-being, which, in turn, can be good for a company or agency’s bottom line.
For more on this, please visit my post, "EAPs raising employee awareness about screening for ACEs."
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