The influential adverse childhood experiences questionnaire should ask about gun violence By Sydney DurrahMarch 21, 2024

https://www.statnews.com/2024/03/21/aces-adverse-childhood-experience-questionnaire-gun-violence/?utm_campaign=morning_rounds&utm_medium=email&_hsmi=299162334&_hsenc=p2ANqtz-8ABuGSbBbuOiHdo4LjWTaRlZ-0X0n1T8E-euUx7pR3es1GjfMA2oYgj7ukc96aXp1lQfMoMS4ITLCHpwIrbfgTk1PCNA&utm_content=299162334&utm_source=hs_email The adverse childhood experience questionnaire is a crucial tool in medicine, but it could use an update, public health graduate student Sydney Durrah writes in a STAT First Opinion. Gun violence has become so pervasive that the screening tool doctors now use to evaluate their patients' physical and mental well-being falls short: It fails to ask whether someone experienced, witnessed, or was affected by gun violence as a child. Survivors of gun violence face an elevated risk of developing substance use disorders. There has been a surge in antidepressant use among youth and an increase in suicide risk in communities that have experienced school shootings “Gun violence represents a distinct form of violence with unique implications for individuals’ health and well-being,” Durrah writes. “Understanding an individual’s exposure to gun violence allows for a precise assessment of community risk factors and resilience.” Read more, including what spurred the questionnaire’s development in the mid-1990s. https://www.kff.org/mental-health/issue-brief/the-impact-of-gun-violence-on-children-and-adolescents/?utm_campaign=morning_rounds&utm_medium=email&_hsmi=299162334&_hsenc=p2ANqtz--iZoAo5pNcHYRs5lIZlFZMBNBOJl8diihsu_sq9wXj0R6NjBKgiGCRcBv-M9q5oGxmO9ykeEyiQzwj1p1iMgdz8hBErA&utm_content=299162334&utm_source=hs_email