ABSTRACT
132 133Throughout this book, information has been provided to illustrate both the enduring influence of ACEs on long-term health and well-being as well as realizing that on a macro-level, ACEs are global public health issues. The original ACE Study moves forward our understanding of early life stresses and the health-damaging effects that are implicated in promoting health disparities. There is a vital need for public health endeavors that tackle the social and economic circumstances that are key drivers in health inequalities stemming from ACEs. As well, research on ACEs is needed to move toward evidence to marshal recommended prevention and treatment approaches for individuals along with a wide range of community-based contexts where ACEs assessment, education, and interventions could occur. The science of ACEs is foundational knowledge health professionals must be well-informed about, including health-related policies that unfavorably impinge on families and communities. Health professionals have a responsibility to be knowledgeable of emerging research on ACEs, and this research evidence must be translated into relevant policies that can be executed to advance the needs of vulnerable populations. Taking into account the socio-ecological factors that are implicated in health, research on ACEs, toxic stress, and trauma must provoke a serious look at policies involving poverty, affordable housing, public education, incarceration, human rights, immigration, living wage, as well as access to health and behavioral health services. Health professionals have an ethical imperative to perceive clinical practice within the macro context while making every effort to come to be life-long activists and effective professionals while engaging in work using a social justice lens. It is incumbent on health professionals to vigorously shift from merely thinking about ACEs on an individual level to extend considering mechanisms to address cross-sector collaboration to form healthy communities and upholding policies that encourage resilience and preclude ACEs. Importantly, health professionals have a critical role in not only leading or being integral members on research teams, they are also important as it relates to supporting and advocating for public health measures that prevent and offer early interventions to support health-promoting strategies that strive to produce healthier environments for today’s youth, along with making sustainable advances in health at the population level for future generations. In addition to having a strong lens on research, moving forward, health professionals must organize 134strategies across divisions including education, social, and health to reduce the widespread individual and public ills associated with ACEs.
