Three Realms of ACEs

Adverse childhood and community experiences (ACEs) can occur in the household, the community, or in the environment and cause toxic stress. Left unaddressed, toxic stress from ACEs harms children and families, organizations, systems and communities, and reduces the ability of individuals and entities to respond to stressful events with resiliency. Research has shown that there are many ways to reduce and heal from toxic stress and build healthy, caring communities.

1. Household

• Divorce

• Incarcerated family member

• Homelessness

• Physical and emotional neglect

• Parental mental illness

• Alcoholism and drug abuse

• Bullying

• Domestic violence

• Emotional and sexual abuse

• Maternal depression

2. Community

• Discrimination

• Historical trauma

• Violence

• Lack of social capital and mobility

• Substandard schools

• Structural racism

• Poor water and air quality

• Lack of jobs

• Food scarcity

• Substandard wages

• Poverty

• Poor housing quality and affordability

3. Environment

Climate crisis

• Record heat & droughts

• Wildfires & smoke

• Record storms, flooding & mudslides

• Sea level rise

Natural disasters

• Tornadoes & hurricanes

• Volcano eruptions & tsunamis

• Earthquakes

• Pandemic

ACE Study — Five important findings

1. ACEs are surprisingly common. 64% of the 17,000 in the ACE Study had one of the 10 ACEs; 12 percent had four or more.

2. There's an unmistakable link between ACEs and adult onset of chronic disease, mental illness, violence and being a victim of violence.

3. The more types of childhood adversity, the direr the consequences. An ACE score of 4 increases the risk of alcoholism by 700%, attempted suicide by 1200%; it doubles heart disease and lung cancer rates.

4. ACEs contribute to most of our health problems, including chronic disease, financial and social health issues.

5. One type of ACE is no more damaging than another. An ACE score of 4 that includes divorce, physical abuse, a family member depressed or in prison has the same statistical outcome as four other types of ACEs. This is why focusing on preventing just one type of trauma and/or coping mechanism isn't working.

The five parts of ACEs science

ACEs are just ONE PART of ACEs science. The five parts of ACEs science:

• The ACE Study and other ACE surveys (epidemiology).

• How toxic stress from ACEs damages children's brains (neurobiology).

• How toxic stress from ACEs affects our short- and long-term health.

• How we pass ACEs from parent to child through our genes (epigenetics).

• And how resilience research shows our brains are plastic, our bodies can heal.

We're not doomed!

Our brains are plastic. Our bodies want to heal. To reduce stress hormones in our bodies and brains, we can meditate, exercise, sleep and eat well, have safe relationships, live and work in safety, ask for help when we need it.

We can build resilient families. Educating parents about their own ACEs helps them understand their lives and motivates them to become healthy parents to prevent passing their ACEs on to their kids.

For resilient families, we need healthy organizations, healthy systems and healthy communities. The frontier of resilience research lies in creating communities and systems that prevent childhood adversity, stop traumatizing already traumatized people, and build resilience.

Many people, organizations and communities are integrating trauma-informed and resilience-building practices based on ACEs science, including pediatricians, schools, juvenile detention facilities, businesses, social services, people in the faith-based community, health clinics, etc.

PACEs Connection thanks Building Community Resilience Collaborative and Networks and the International Transformational Resilience Coalition for inspiration and guidance.