About the research
Trauma, abuse and maltreatment are known to affect children’s development and psychological well-being. Additionally, the findings of this research reveal that adverse childhood experiences can also put people at risk for early death.
This research project examined the association between childhood social and psychological conditions and premature adult mortality from all causes (between 23-50 years of age). The results show that those who had adverse childhood experiences between 7 and 16 years of age had an increased risk of premature mortality, even after taking into account factors such as education level, social class, drug use, and psychological problems in early adulthood. The researchers defined adversity as experiences, such as, foster care, physical neglect, and parental separation.
For women, in particular, the likelihood of an early death increased with the amount of trauma they suffered in childhood. Compared to those who had not faced any adversity, women who experienced one negative event by age 16 were 66 per cent more likely to die before the age of 50. Women with a history of two or more adverse experiences in childhood had an 80 per cent increased risk of early death. Men had similar risks: two or more traumatic events in childhood was associated with a 57 per cent more likelihood of premature death compared to those who had no adversity growing up.
Methodology
Several National Child Development Study datasets were used to carry out this study: the childhood data (sweeps 0-3), data at age 23 (sweeps 4) and the mortality dataset (1958-2009).
A theoretical definition of adverse childhood experiences allowed for a number of variables to be identified at ages 7, 11 and 16 years. An aggregate variable in three categories (0, 1, and 2+) was constructed. Information on childhood socioeconomic situation and health was also extracted from the childhood dataset.
Variables were derived on smoking, alcohol, and psychological malaise at age 23 to account for possible mediators. The all-cause mortality data from death certificates was used as the outcome measure.
To increase the power and limit biases caused by attrition and missing data, multiple imputations was used on the variables in the model, excluding from the imputation model the exposure variable (ACE) and the outcome variable (mortality). Multiple imputation estimates were obtained using the Stata ICE module. Cox multiple regression models were run in MI using Stata.
Publications
Kelly-Irving, M., Lepage, B., Dedieu, D., Bartley, M., Blane, D., Grosclaude, P., Lang, T. and Delpierre, C. (2013) ‘Adverse childhood experiences and premature all-cause mortality’, European Journal of Epidemiology, 28, pp. 721–734. Retrieved 25 February 2014 from http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10654-013-9832-9
This study has also received media coverage:
Rivas, A. (9 September 2013) ‘Traumatic childhood incidents could put people at risk for premature death’, The Medical Daily. Retrieved 25 February 2014 from http://www.medicaldaily.com/traumatic-childhood-incidents-could-put-people-risk-premature-death-256148