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Stress-related illness studies offer strategies to reduce effects in children
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Evidence-based research on stress-related illnesses may effectively reveal how early experiences last in the body and later affect learning, behavior and mental health, according to a researcher at Harvard University.
“Decades of evaluation research reveal that effective interventions for disadvantaged, young children can produce short-term developmental gains, higher rates of high school graduation increased adult employment and reduced incarceration,” Jack P. Shonkoff, MD, the Julius B. Richmond FAMRI professor of child health and development at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, wrote. “In this context, 21st century biology offers an opportunity to gain greater understanding of why some interventions work better than others both inside the brain and throughout the body. Leveraging that knowledge could inform more effective strategies for reducing disease by mitigating the effects of adversity early in life.”
Shonkoff reported that multiple stress-related illness studies offered ways to construct an integrated approach to reduce health consequences in children and adults who faced early-life adversity. The Adverse Childhood Experiences Study found an association between adverse childhood experiences and adulthood health impairments in 9,000 middle class participants in 1995-1996. In 2005, the National Scientific Council on the Developing Child collaborated with the FrameWorks Institute to describe stress response systems activated or prolonged for a period of time in place of buffering protection from a parent or caregiver. The longer duration of stress correlated with disruption in brain architecture, metabolic functions and a lower threshold for stress system activation and an increased risk for chronic disease.
“This growing knowledge base suggests four shifts in thinking about policy and practice:
- early experiences affect lifelong health, not just learning;
- healthy brain development requires protection from toxic stress, not just enrichment;
- achieving breakthrough outcomes for young children facing adversity requires support for the adults who care for them to transform their own lives and;
- more effective interventions are needed in the prenatal period and first 3 years after birth for the most disadvantaged children and families,” Shonkoff wrote.
“The time has come to leverage 21st century science to catalyze the design, testing and scaling of more powerful approaches for reducing lifelong disease by mitigating the effects of early adversity,” Shonkoff said. – by Kate Sherrer
Disclosure: The study was funded by the Buffet Early Childhood Fund, Bezos Family Foundation, The JPB Foundation and Palix Foundation. Shonkoff reports no relevant financial disclosures.
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