Public Health Update: ACEs - The Quiet Cause
Department
Physical Therapy
Abstract
The story of one of the biggest breakthroughs at the intersection of public health and clinical care began in the 1980s at an obesity clinic in San Diego. Dr. Vincent Felitti wanted to know why nearly half the patients in his program dropped out even though most of them reported successfully losing weight. He found that the majority of the nearly 300 people he interviewed had suffered sexual abuse as a child. As a result, he theorized that their weight gain may have been a coping mechanism for mental health illnesses resulting from unresolved childhood trauma. Later, he launched a landmark study at Kaiser identifying strong associations between health challenges in adulthood and childhood adversity.
Today, these are known as adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) which are potentially traumatic events or circumstances that occur during childhood and adolescence and are broadly grouped into three categories: abuse, neglect, and household dysfunction.
Document Type
News Article
Publication Date
3-15-2020
Publication Title
San Joaquin County Physician
First Page
52
Last Page
56
Recommended Citation
Callaway, Gwen; Davenport, Todd E.; and Park, Maggie, "Public Health Update: ACEs - The Quiet Cause" (2020). All Faculty Scholarship. 355.
https://scholarlycommons.pacific.edu/shs-all/355
