Adversity, Trauma and Resilience: A series of webinars from the BNSSG Adverse Childhood Experiences Health Integration Team

All webinars in this series are open to all partners across Bristol, North Somerset and South Gloucestershire.

Adverse Childhood Experiences in the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children (ALSPAC): using life course data to assess who is at risk of ACEs and their adverse educational and health consequences

Laura Howe, Reader in Epidemiology and Medical Statistics, University of Bristol

Using data from the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children (ALSPAC, also called ‘Children of the 90s’), we will outline research findings on how poverty drives the clustering of ACEs, and on the educational and health outcomes associated with ACEs. Our research has shown that poverty is strongly related to experiencing multiple ACEs. Despite this, we find that people who experience ACEs have, on average, lower educational attainment and higher risk of depression, drug use, and smoking, and that these patterns were independent of family and socioeconomic factors. However, neither ACEs not socioeconomic deprivation are experienced by the majority of people who have low educational attainment or poor health outcomes, which suggests that interventions that focus solely on ACEs or solely on socioeconomic deprivation, whilst beneficial, would miss most cases of adverse educational and health outcomes.

Dr Laura Howe is a statistical epidemiologist. Her two main interests are: i) the life course epidemiology of obesity and cardiovascular disease, and ii) the complex and bidirectional relationships between social factors (socioeconomic disadvantage, adverse childhood experiences) and health.

* BNSSG: Bristol, North Somerset and South Gloucestershire

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Using life course data to assess who is at risk of ACEs