Adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) are a relatively unknown topic but have proven to have lasting impacts on an individual’s health. While the research globally is limited, “about 61% of adults surveyed across 25 [U.S.] states reported that they had experienced at least one type of ACE, and nearly 1 in 6 reported they had experienced four or more types of ACEs” (Centers for Disease Control [CDC], 2019). This furthers the need for research. According to Windle et al. (2018), “ACEs refer to a number of adverse experiences (eg, physical and sexual abuse, parental neglect, parental alcoholism, parental divorce) that have occurred prior to age 18 years that pose substantial risk for the subsequent development of negative health outcomes.” ACE scoring is a calculated score for every traumatic or adverse event that a person experiences on a zero to ten numeric scale. A higher numeric value of an ACE score indicates an increased number of exposures to traumatic events (Harris, 2014). This poses the question of how does an ACE score greater than or equal to four influences high-risk behaviors versus an ACE score less than or equal to three? The high-risk behaviors focused on in this brief include: alcohol abuse, illicit drug use, and unsafe sexual practices. The purpose of this Evidence-Based Practice brief is to examine the relationship between an ACE score and high-risk behaviors. The implementation of ACE score testing will be important to health care professionals to reduce the number of patients impacted by high-risk behaviors associated with ACE scores.
