The relationship of adverse childhood experiences to a history of premature death of family members

We used data from 17,337 adult health plan members who completed a survey about 10 types of ACEs and whether a family member died before age 65. The prevalence of family member premature death and its association with ACEs were assessed.Family members of respondents who experienced any type of ACEs were more likely to have elevated prevalence for premature death relative to those of respondents without such experience (p < 0.01). The highest risk occurred among those who reported having been physically neglected and living with substance abusing or criminal family members during childhood. A powerful graded relationship between the number of ACEs and premature mortality in the family was observed for all age groups, and comparison between groups reporting 0 ACE and ≥ 4 ACEs yielded an OR of 1.8 (95%CI, 1.6–2.0).Adverse childhood experiences may be an indicator of a chaotic family environment that results in an increased risk of premature death among family members.Increasing the life expectancy of Americans of all ages is the first goal of Healthy People 2010 set forth by the United States Department of Health and Human Services [1]. However, mortality from the leading causes of death (eg, heart disease, cirrhosis, unintentional injury, suicide, homicide, and HIV/AIDS) among adults continues to pose a major obstacle in achieving this goal [2-6]. Various external health risk factors, such as tobacco, diet and activity patterns, alcohol, sexual behavior, motor vehicle crashes, and use of illicit drugs contribute prominently to the leading causes of death [7].Many of the risk factors for leading causes of death in adults are associated with traumatic childhood experiences. Growing up experiencing childhood abuse, neglect, and growing up with serious forms of family dysfunction substantially increases the risk of smoking, illicit drug abuse, alcoholism, suicide and perceived poor health (which predicts early death) in adults [8-14]. Thus, the leading causes of death in