Adverse childhood experiences and premature all-cause mortality

Abstract

Events causing stress responses during sensitive periods of rapid neurological development in childhood may be early determinants of all-cause premature mortality. Using a British birth cohort study of individuals born in 1958, the relationship between adverse childhood experiences (ACE) and mortality ≤50 year was examined for men (n = 7,816) and women (n = 7,405) separately. ACE were measured using prospectively collected reports from parents and the school: no adversities (70 %); one adversity (22 %), two or more adversities (8 %). A Cox regression model was carried out controlling for early life variables and for characteristics at 23 years. In men the risk of death was 57 % higher among those who had experienced 2+ ACE compared to those with none (HR 1.57, 95 % CI 1.13, 2.18, p = 0.007). In women, a graded relationship was observed between ACE and mortality, the risk increasing as ACE accumulated. Women with one ACE had a 66 % increased risk of death (HR 1.66, 95 % CI 1.19, 2.33, p = 0.003) and those with ≥2 ACE had an 80 % increased risk (HR 1.80, 95 % CI 1.10, 2.95, p = 0.020) versus those with no ACE. Given the small impact of adult life style factors on the association between ACE and premature mortality, biological embedding during sensitive periods in early development is a plausible explanatory mechanism.

Cited by papers we hold 8

• Psychological flexibility mediates the long-term impact of adverse interpersonal experiences in childhood and adolescence · 2025
  Not checked
• Association of Unhealthy Lifestyle and Childhood Adversity With Acceleration of Aging Among UK Biobank Participants · 2022
  No notice
• Maternal adverse childhood experiences and their association with preterm birth: secondary analysis of data from universal health visiting · 2022
  Not checked
• Associations between adverse childhood experiences and health outcomes in adults aged 18–59 years · 2019
  No notice
• Biological embedding of childhood adversity: from physiological mechanisms to clinical implications · 2017
  No notice
• Social adversity and epigenetic aging: a multi-cohort study on socioeconomic differences in peripheral blood DNA methylation · 2017
  No notice
• The Rotterdam Study: 2016 objectives and design update · 2015
  No notice
• Measuring mortality and the burden of adult disease associated with adverse childhood experiences in England: a national survey · 2014
  No notice

Reads

A person counts once a day per paper. We keep no cookie and no address: a reader is a hash that changes every day. Any month under five reads shows no number.