How childhood trauma affects health across a lifetime

Pediatrician Nadine Burke Harris discusses the detrimental impact of traumatic childhood experiences on physical and mental health outcomes across the lifespan in this TEDMED 2014 talk. Harris ardently calls on healthcare professionals to take seriously the treatment of prevention of trauma:

“The science is clear: Early adversity dramatically affects health across a lifetime. Today, we are beginning to understand how to interrupt the progression from early adversity to disease and early death, and 30 years from now, the child who has a high ACE score and whose behavioral symptoms go unrecognized, whose asthma management is not connected, and who goes on to develop high blood pressure and early heart disease or cancer will be just as anomalous as a six-month mortality from HIV/AIDS”