Infant Health and Future Childhood Adversity

Maternal and Child Health Journal volume 22, pages 318–326 (2018)Cite this article

Abstract

Objective To investigate the extent to which disabling infant health conditions are associated with adverse childhood experiences at age 5. Methods We conducted a secondary analysis of data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study, a national urban birth cohort. We estimated logistic regression models of associations between the presence of a disabling infant health condition and the child’s ACE exposures at age 5, controlling for factors that preceded the child’s birth, including the mother’s sociodemographic characteristics, physical health, mental illness, and substance abuse and the parents’ criminal justice system involvement and domestic violence or sexual abuse. ACEs included 4 categories of child maltreatment (physical, sexual, psychological abuse, neglect) and 5 categories of household dysfunction (father absence, substance use, mental illness, caregiver treated violently, incarceration). Results 3.3% of the children were characterized as having a disabling health condition that was likely present at birth. Logistic regression estimates indicate that having a disabling infant health condition was associated with 83% higher odds of the child experiencing 2 or more ACEs (AOR 1.83, CI 1.14–2.94) and 73% higher odds of the child experiencing 3 or more ACEs (AOR 1.73, CI 1.07–2.77) at age 5. Conclusions for Practice The finding of strong links between disabling infant health conditions and ACEs at age 5 suggests that child health and ACEs play intertwining and mutually reinforcing roles during the early lifecourse and highlights the critical importance of investing in systems that simultaneously promote optimal child development and address childhood adversity.

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Acknowledgements

Dr. Reichman and Dr. Jiménez acknowledge indirect support for this research from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation through its support of the Child Health Institute of New Jersey (Grants 67038 and 74260). Dr. Jiménez received support from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Harold Amos Medical Faculty Development Program. The Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing data collection was supported in part by Award Numbers R25HD074544, P2CHD058486, and 5R01HD036916 from the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health & Human Development. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health & Human Development, or the National Institutes of Health. The authors are grateful to Jessenia Tantalean and Grace Hillman for excellent research assistance.

Author information

Affiliations

  1. Department of Pediatrics and Child Health Institute of New Jersey, Rutgers University—Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, 89 French St., Room 3272, New Brunswick, NJ, 08903, USA

    Nancy E. Reichman

  2. Institute for Health Policy, Management and Evaluation, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada

    Nancy E. Reichman

  3. Department of Finance and Economics, Rider University, 2083 Lawrenceville Rd., Lawrenceville, NJ, 08648, USA

    Hope Corman & Kelly Noonan

  4. National Bureau of Economic Research, New York, NY, USA

    Hope Corman & Kelly Noonan

  5. Department of Economics, Princeton University, 222 Julis Romo Rabinowitz Building, Princeton, NJ, 08544, USA

    Kelly Noonan

  6. Department of Pediatrics, Boggs Center for Developmental Disabilities, Child Health Institute of New Jersey, and Department of Family Medicine, Rutgers University—Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, 89 French St., Room 3271, New Brunswick, NJ, 08903, USA

    Manuel E. Jiménez

  7. Children’s Specialized Hospital, New Brunswick, NJ, USA

    Manuel E. Jiménez

Authors
  1. Nancy E. Reichman
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  2. Hope Corman
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  3. Kelly Noonan
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  4. Manuel E. Jiménez
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Nancy E. Reichman.

Appendix

Appendix

Table 4 Disabling infant health conditions (primary measure)
Full size table
Table 5 ACE outcomes by presence of disabling infant health condition
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Table 6 Logistic regression estimates of associations between disabling infant health condition and two or more ACE at age 5 and between disabling infant health condition and three or more ACEs at age 5 (n = 2792)
Full size table

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Reichman, N.E., Corman, H., Noonan, K. et al. Infant Health and Future Childhood Adversity. Matern Child Health J 22, 318–326 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10995-017-2418-5

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Keywords

  • ACEs
  • Adverse childhood experiences
  • Child disability
  • Child health