142nd APHA Annual Meeting and Exposition

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Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) in the Maternal-Child Home Visiting Context

142nd APHA Annual Meeting and Exposition (November 15 - November 19, 2014): http://www.apha.org/events-and-meetings/annual
Tuesday, November 18, 2014 : 4:50 PM - 5:10 PM

Carolyn Hartley, PhD , School of Social Work, University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA
Brad Richardson, PhD , National Resource Center for Family Centered Practice, The University of Iowa School of Social Work, Des Moines, IA, IA
The Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) survey assesses a variety of negative childhood experiences among adults (Felitti, et al., 1998), with higher scores indicating more negative impact.  ACEs has been widely used to examine how adverse childhood experiences affect health related outcomes in adulthood. More recently ACEs has been applied to maternal-child home visiting. It is thought that the biologic response to toxic stress can negatively impact parenting (Carson & Porter, 2011) putting families at risk.

This pilot study examines the relationship between parents' ACEs scores and family functioning variables measured by the Life Skills Progression tool in a sample of new or expecting mothers enrolled in the Iowa Maternal, Infant, and Early Childhood Home Visiting Program (MIECHV). The larger MIECHV project focuses on improving maternal and child health, childhood injury prevention, and school readiness and achievement. This study looks specifically at the relationship between parents' ACE scores and family functioning variables most likely to be addressed by home visitors.

Total ACE scores and threshold scores (2 or more, 3 or more) are examined. We find that parents with higher ACE scores have more conflict in family and peer relationships, poorer nurturing, more disciplinary struggle, more safety concerns, higher risk of depression and suicide, higher incidence of mental health, poor self-esteem, and more housing and transportation vulnerabilities. This presentation will discuss the use of the ACEs tool in the context of home visiting and its implications for home visitor service provision and impact on future family functioning and child health outcomes.

Learning Areas:

Administer health education strategies, interventions and programs
Implementation of health education strategies, interventions and programs

Learning Objectives:
Assess the role of adverse childhood experiences on family functioning in a maternal infant child health home visiting context.

Keyword(s): Maternal and Child Health, Risk Factors/Assesment

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Qualified on the content I am responsible for because: I have been the PI or CO-PI of multiple federally funded projects examining system responses to interpersonal violence including domestic violence and child maltreatment. I am also a faculty affiliate of the National Resource Center for Family Centered Practice working on several public health related evaluation projects in the state of Iowa. Among my interests are the co-occurrence of multiple forms of family violence and legal responses to family violence.
Any relevant financial relationships? No

I agree to comply with the American Public Health Association Conflict of Interest and Commercial Support Guidelines, and to disclose to the participants any off-label or experimental uses of a commercial product or service discussed in my presentation.

Back to: 4441.0: Infant & Child Health: Vulnerable Children & Adverse Life Experiences