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Symposia

Aging and Older Adults

Clinical Geropsychology: Recent Data Highlighting the Importance of Including Older Adults in Mental Health Research

2 - (SYM 28) Adverse Childhood Events Continue to Impact Health, Even Among Older Adults

Saturday, November 22, 2025
10:18 AM - 10:32 AM CST
Location: Imperial 9, Level 4
Keywords: Aging, Evidence-Based Practice, Older Adults
Recommended Readings: Laidlaw, K., & McAlpine, S. (2008). Cognitive behaviour therapy: How is it different with older people?. Journal of Rational-Emotive & Cognitive-Behavior Therapy, 26, 250-262.,   Lederman, S., & Shefler, G. (2023). Psychotherapy with older adults: Ageism and the therapeutic process. Psychotherapy Research, 33(3), 350-361.,   Goodwin, V. A., Low, M. S., Quinn, T. J., Cockcroft, E. J., Shepherd, V., Evans, P. H., ... & Witham, M. D. (2023). Including older people in health and social care research: best practice recommendations based on the INCLUDE framework. Age and Ageing, 52(6), afad082.,   Salthouse, T. A. (2019). Trajectories of normal cognitive aging. Psychology and Aging, 34(1), 17–24. https://doi.org/10.1037/pag0000288,  
Abstract Body

Adverse childhood events (ACEs) have been demonstrated to have significant impact on individuals’ physical and psychological health. Much of the work has examined this phenomenon among young and middle aged adults. Anecdotal evidence also suggests that providers are less likely to assess for these experiences among older adults.

The current study sought to examine whether the impact of these events reduce with age or if these events have a continued impact across the lifespan. Using the Midlife in the United States (MIDUS) study, I examined the impact of parental emotional and physical abuse among 5610 participants (age range=20 to 75; M=46.5, SD=12.8). Of these participants, 1670 (29.8%) reported at least one parent engaged in emotional or physical abuse. For analyses, logistic and linear regression was used to identify the impact of age, ACEs, and their interaction controlling for sex. Age was centered at 65 such that the impact of ACEs was evaluated at this age.

Results indicate that more childhood abuse was associated with worse outcomes for depression screening (OR = 1.17, 95% CI = 1.02, 1.33), self-evaluated physical health (b = -.11, p < .001), self-evaluated mental health (b = -.08, p < .001), negative affect (b = .07, p < .001), and positive affect (b = -.05, p = .001), but was not associated with anxiety screening (OR = 1.20, 95% CI = 0.94, 1.54). However, across all models examined, the interaction between age and ACEs was not significant (all p’s > .15) apart from positive affect (b = .0015, p = .04).

These results indicate that ACEs continue to have an impact across the lifespan. Additionally, these impacts do not appear to significantly lessen as individuals get older, with the exception of positive affect. However, this lessening is slow in that an individual would need to be 101.2 to fully compensate for the impact the lowest category of abuse. The current results suggest continued screening for ACEs may be important for older adults, even though these events may have occurred many years in the past.