During my two years off from medical school, I’ve been volunteering as a court appointed special advocate for children in the foster care system. And I’ve spent a lot of time reading about how these kids’ experiences could affect the rest of their lives.
The seminal research on this happened in the late ‘90s using data from more 17,000 Kaiser patients. What the researchers found was that patients who reported more adverse childhood experiences were more likely to suffer from such long-term medical conditions as heart disease, liver disease, stroke, diabetes and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease – diseases that no one thought were related to childhood abuse or neglect. These same patients were also at higher risk of depression, financial stress, smoking and suicide. As I read this research, I kept thinking: What’s the link? And what can we do?
[For more of this story, written by Natalia Birgisson, go to http://scopeblog.stanford.edu/...ences-affect-adults/]
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