Unburdened by false humility, postmodern trauma activists claim to have understood for the first time what drives all of human suffering
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CATEGORY: GOVERNMENT PROJECTS  Phyllis Holditch Niolon, PhDSource: Centers for Disease Control Read time: 2.5 minutes This Happened In October 2024, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) released the findings from the 2023 Youth Risk Behavior Survey (YRBS), which included the first nationally-representative report on adverse childlhood experiences (ACEs) reported by children instead of adults. Who Did This? Senior author was Phyllis Holditch Niolon, PhD, the senior advisor for ACEs in the Division of Violence Prevention at CDC. She coordinates the Division's work on prevention of ACEs, and has published approximately eight papers promoting ACEs. First author, Elizabeth Swedo, MD, is a pediatrician who works in the Division. The Premise The ACE data were gathered from 17,838 students in grades 9-12 with self-report surveys. The YRBS is administered every two years. The 2023 version was the first national survey asking children to self-report on ACEs. Items covered eight of the 10 original ACE items:
(9) Emotional neglect and (10) Divorce / abandoned by parent were not asked. The authors found the usual finding that has been found in dozens of prior ACE studies that a higher number of ACEs correlates with increased poor health outcomes, such as substance abuse, obesity, feelings of sadness, and thoughts of suicide. Correlations were also found with “health risk behaviors,” including bringing a weapon to school, being in a physical fight, and sexually active with multiple people. Analysis Critical analysis of this survey raises several concerns. First, the most common ACE, emotional abuse was endorsed by the majority of children (61.5%). It is inconceivable that the majority of American children truly believe they are abused by their parents. The wording of the survey question was “During your life, how often has a parent or other adult in your home insulted you or put you down?” Obviously, the wording of this question does not rise to the level of abnormally negative parenting that has malicious intent to children. This question could easily be endorsed when parents try too hard to coach children on sports, for example. Many of the endorsements for emotional abuse and the other items are undoubtedly false positives, which would not be surprising. I recently published the first study to document that false positive endorsements of traumatic life events are common [1]. It is not a leap to think the same is true of non-traumatic, everyday stressful events. Self-reports must be verified by interviewers to be credible. Second, surveys like this are now routinely given to children in schools. They carry the implied message that life experiences may be harmful, or else the government would not take the time to ask about them. These frequent surveys may be conditioning children with repetition to believe they may be fragile, which is contributing to the current misperception that a child mental health crisis exists. In addition to the eight ACE items, the survey for high school students asked about 53 other possibly harmful activities.
There are, however, no studies that measured health status prior to the experiences of ACEs. One hundred percent of ACE studies have been cross-sectional. The far more likely explanation for the correlation of ACEs with physical diseases later in life is that bad things do not happen at random. Children who are placed in adverse situations by their parents likely have parents with genetic profiles that make them less competent at managing themselves and their children, and, in addition, predispose them to more physical and mental diseases. Parents pass these genetic profiles to their children, who are then more likely to develop physical and mental diseases for genetic reasons, not because of stressful childhood experiences. Authors of ACE studies almost never consider this possibility. Why Did This Happen? ACEs is part and parcel of the leftist progressive narrative of Fragilism, that the world is divided into oppressed and oppressor, and all poor outcomes of disadvantaged people in the world must be due to environmental causes, not genetics. The only rationale the CDC can promote for collecting ACE data is that ACEs are harmful, and further, that ACEs can be prevented. If they cannot be prevented, there is no sensible reason to spend the time and money on repeatedly measuring them. The CDC report claimed, “Preventing ACEs is possible and achievable,” and they cited the CDC’s resource guide on prevention. Despite the guide’s assurances, there are, however, no good data that ACEs—abuse, divorce, parents being incarcerated, parental mental disorders—can be prevented. Multiple commentaries from experts have demonstrated some backbone to speak out about the foolishness of screening people for ACE scores [2,3], one of which, oddly, included some of the authors of the CDC report [4]. References [1} Scheeringa MS (2025). False positives for Criterion A trauma events and PTSD symptoms with questionnaires are common in children and adolescents and could not be eliminated with enhanced instructions. Journal of Child and Adolescent Psychopharmacology, DOI: 10.1089/cap.2024.0126. Free preprint here (publication #94). [2] Anda RF, Porter LE, Brown DW (2020). Inside the Adverse Childhood Experience Score: Strengths, Limitations, and Misapplications. American Journal of Preventive Medicine 59(2):293−295; DOI: 10.1016/j.amepre.2020.01.009. [3] John D. McLennan, Andrea Gonzalez, Harriet L. MacMillan, Tracie O. Afifi, Routine screening for adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) still doesn't make sense, Child Abuse & Neglect, 2024, DOI: 10.1016/j.chiabu.2024.106708. [4] Austin AE, Anderson KN, Goodson M, Niolon PH, Swedo EA, Terranella A, Bacon S. Screening for Adverse Childhood Experiences: A Critical Appraisal. Pediatrics. 2024 Dec 1;154(6):e2024067307. DOI: 10.1542/peds.2024-067307. Comments are closed.
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