Today, we know that adverse experiences in childhood can impact powerfully on a person’s physical and psychological wellbeing many years later.
In this seven minute long video, Dr. Vincent Felitti, the co-founder of the Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) study, details the connection between childhood trauma and negative health outcomes in adulthood.
‘… with a so-called ACE score of six, experiencing any six of the ten categories we studied, that person was 4,600% more likely to become an IV drug user than a person who had experienced none of those ten categories.
… you read in the newspaper the latest cancer scare of the week, prostate cancer or breast cancer increases 30% and everyone goes nuts. I’m talking 4,600% increase.
The same ACE score of six produces a likelihood of attempting suicide that is between 3,100 and 5,000% greater than the likelihood of suicide attempts in someone with none of those life experiences.’
A renowned physician and researcher, Dr. Vincent J. Felitti is one of the world’s foremost experts on childhood trauma. Leading the charge in research into how adverse childhood experiences affect adults, he is co-principal investigator of the internationally recognized Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) Study, a long-term, in-depth, analysis of over 17,000 adults. Defying conventional belief, this study famously revealed a powerful relationship between our emotional experiences as children and our physical and mental health as adults. In fact, the ACE study shows that humans convert childhood traumatic emotional experiences into organic disease later in life. Revolutionary at its inception, Felitti’s groundbreaking research remains extremely relevant to today’s healthcare models. 11 October 2015 [7’15”]