Adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) research: A bibliometric analysis of publication trends over the first 20 years

Adverse Childhood Experiences & mental health – the urgent need for public health intervention in India

“…1 ) developed in collaboration with the Center for Disease Control & Prevention, United States, identified a strong graded relationship between the extent of ACE exposure during childhood and the presence of multiple risk factors for several of the leading causes of death in the United States [ 6 ]. This questionnaire is validated across several continents for the impact of these 10 experiences on mental and physical health [ 1 , 7 ]. Since then, newer versions are explored by adding several more adverse experiences such as: (1) peer victimization; (2) peer isolation or rejection; and (3) socioeconomic position (SEP) [ 8 , 9 ].…”

“…Specific research findings highlighted in Figure 2 are captured below: ACE and overall health consequences: a review of > 250,000 subjects indicated that if the individual experienced 4 or more ACEs, he/she is more likely to experience multiple health outcomes compared to individuals with no ACE. The more ACE elements the individual reports, the higher the risk of health-harming behavior (e.g., smoking, sexual risk-taking) and the likelihood of infectious and non-communicable disease [ 1 , 7 , 14 ]; higher risk of developing mental disorder: the evidence indicates that the dose-dependent risk based on the number of ACE experiences is highest for depression followed by PTSD, borderline personality disorder, and substance abuse [ 15-17 ]; ACE and physical health implications: ACE is also associated with obesity, diabetes, inflammatory bowel disease (e.g., ulcerative colitis, Cohn disease), and abnormal pain perception with or without the related body pathology [ 18 ]; implications beyond the present generation: Specific outcomes such as violence, mental illness, and problematic substance abuse (correlated with multiple ACEs) can represent ACEs for the next generation through exposure to parental domestic violence, mental illness, and substance abuse [ 19 ]. This evidence confirms that the implications of ACE go beyond the present generation into a cycle that includes adversity, deprivation, and ill-health; across developed and developing world: The work has been extended into some developing and low-income countries, and the findings confirm a similar dose-response relationship between ACE and health outcomes and risk behavior [ 11 , 20 , 21 ].…”

“…ACE and overall health consequences: a review of > 250,000 subjects indicated that if the individual experienced 4 or more ACEs, he/she is more likely to experience multiple health outcomes compared to individuals with no ACE. The more ACE elements the individual reports, the higher the risk of health-harming behavior (e.g., smoking, sexual risk-taking) and the likelihood of infectious and non-communicable disease [ 1 , 7 , 14 ];…”

Patterns of adverse childhood experiences and associations with prenatal substance use and poor infant outcomes in a multi-country cohort of mothers: A Latent Class Analysis

“…Through the use of a summary score technique of standardizing individual risk factors, aggregating the values into one composite measure, and establishing ≥ 4 ACEs as the de facto cut-off score to indicate high-risk status, the study determined that a strong graded relationship exists between ACEs and poor health outcomes and that multiple exposures were likely to lead to multiple health risks. Over a couple of decades since, the field has seen an exponential increase in the number of ACEs studies published (Struck et al, 2021), accumulating substantial evidence on the various pathways that link ACEs, detrimental health outcomes throughout the individual's life-course (Hughes et al, 2017;Petruccelli, et al, 2019, for reviews), and the subsequent generations (Su, et al, 2020, for review). Illuminating the mechanisms of intergenerational transmission of adversity has been a particular concern in recent years to inform intervention targets to tackle vicious cycles of disadvantage.…”

Neurocognition and its association with adverse childhood experiences and familial risk of mental illness

“…Adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) have been studied extensively over the last decade (Struck et al, 2021), and linked to a number of negative outcomes concerning mental & physical health (Chang et al, 2019;Sonu et al, 2019). Exposure to ACEs is associated with an increased risk, and higher severity of several psychiatric disorders, including mood & anxiety disorders (Selous et al, 2020), psychosis (Carbone et al, 2019), substance use disorders (SUD) (Hughes et al, 2019) and obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) (Visser et al, 2014).…”