Objectives Adverse childhood experiences (ACE) have been consistently linked in a strong and graded fashion to a host of health problems in later adulthood but few studies have examined the more proximate effect of ACE on health and emotional well-being in adolescence. Study Design Nationally representative cross-sectional study. Methods Using logistic regression on the 2011/12 National Survey of Children’s Health, we examined the cumulative effect of total ACE score on the health and emotional well-being of US adolescents ages 12 through 17. We investigated the moderating effect of family functioning on the impact of ACE on adolescent health and emotional well-being. Results Adolescents with higher ACE scores had worse reported physical and emotional well-being than adolescents with fewer ACEs net of key demographic and socioeconomic characteristics. Family functioning moderated the negative impact of cumulative ACE on adolescent health and emotional well-being. Conclusions Adolescent well-being has enduring consequences; identifying children with ACE exposure who also have lower-functioning family could also help identify those families at particular risk.

Although intimate partner aggression crosses social class boundaries, education and income are important predictors. Yet given that emerging adulthood is a transitional period, completed education and employment, as single measures, are not ideal indicators of socioeconomic status for young people. We examined associations between self-reports of gainful activity, defined as enrollment in school or full-time employment, and intimate partner aggression among young adults in dating, cohabiting, or married relationships (N=648). Both men and women's participation in gainful activity was negatively associated with aggression. We found that when neither partner was gainfully active, individuals reported higher frequency of physical aggression. In cases of gainful activity asymmetry, the gender of the gainfully active partner did not predict intimate partner aggression. Additionally, we found no evidence that the association between gainful activity and frequency of intimate partner aggression differed by union type.

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