Poster #100 - Risk Across Generations: Adverse Childhood Experiences of CPS-referred Mothers and Chronic Health Risk in Offspring

• In Event: 2-110 - Poster Session 07
  In Poster Session: PS 07 Section - Family Context & Processes

Integrative Statement

Early adversity is associated with biological and behavioral dysregulation in early childhood. A growing literature has found that adults who have experienced Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) as children are at risk for poor health and early mortality (Dube et al., 2003; Monnat, & Chandler, 2015). These adverse events that occur early in life have an impact on the health and social-emotional well being throughout the lifespan (American Academy of Pediatrics, 2014).

ACEs increase the likelihood of mental health problems, substance abuse, partner violence and risky adult behaviors. All of these can contribute to a continuing exposure to ACEs across generations by transmission of epigenetic changes to the genome, effects of stress on a developing fetus, and changes to the parenting environment (e.g., Brockie et al., 2013; Champagne, 2008; De Bellis et al., 2014). It can be inferred that this negative impact can also cause problems in the next generation, however, few reports address the impact of parental cumulative exposure to serious childhood trauma, such as abuse and neglect, on chronic health risk in offspring.

Therefore we examined whether children’s risk for chronic health diagnoses increased as their mothers’ number of adverse childhood experiences (ACE score) increased.

Retrospective survey data were collected from a sample of 175 mother-child dyads from Philadelphia referred following CPS involvement. Mothers were asked to report their children’s chronic health diagnoses from birth to 8 years of age. Eighty-nine children were reported to have chronic health conditions and 86 of the children were reported as healthy. Data were also collected from mothers’ ACE score with a subset of the sample (N=80), which is a standardized metric calculated as the sum of 10 yes/no questions about abuse, neglect, and household dysfunction during early childhood. Binomial logistic regression was used to estimate the association between maternal ACE score and offspring chronic health problems. We controlled for cumulative social risk in order to assess if maternal ACE score predicted offspring health problems above and beyond general risk. Social risk scores were created by summing 5 dichotomized sociodemographic risk factors, including marital status, maternal age at time of child’s birth, education, minority status, and income.

A hierarchical binary logistic regression indicated that ACEs total, entered on Step 2, significantly predicted whether children had chronic health conditions (χ2= 6.910, df= 1, p < 0.05). Cumulative social risk, entered on Step 1, was not a significant predictor. The maternal ACEs score explained 16.6% of the variability of whether or not offspring had a chronic health problem. The maternal ACEs score odds ratio was 1.369 (i.e., having a mother with one additional adverse childhood experience increased the odds of having a chronic health problem by 36.9%).

These preliminary findings show that even when accounting for general risk, early life experiences predict chronic health diagnoses in offspring. The data suggest that early childhood experiences have lasting consequences not only in later life but also in subsequent generations.

Authors

• Amanda M. Flagg, University of Delaware
  Presenting Author

• Caroline K.P. Roben, University of Delaware
  Non-Presenting Author

• Mary Dozier, University of Delaware
  Non-Presenting Author