Primary Submission Category: Race/Ethnicity
Adverse childhood experiences across Multiracial and monoracial groups: investigating differences by Indigenous ancestry
Authors:Â Tracy Lam-Hine Corinne Riddell Patrick Bradshaw Michael Omi Amani Allen
Presenting Author: Tracy Lam-Hine*
Adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) are linked to increased risk of a host of health outcomes in adulthood. Descriptive studies of ACEs prevalence using data from the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System have shown that Multiracial people have higher mean ACE scores than any other racial group, but offer few explanations for these disparities. Multiracial people form one of the fastest-growing populations in the US, and the largest subgroup of Multiracial people is those that claim American Indian/Native American (AI/NA) ancestry. Mean ACE counts (scores) are also high among the AI/NA population, which may reflect impacts of land occupation and systemic racism. This descriptive disaggregation study used data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health (Add Health) to test the hypothesis that mean scores are higher among Multiracial participants with (M AI/NA) compared to without AI/NA (M not AI/NA) ancestry. Mean scores were highest among the AI/NA (3.16, 95% CI: 2.47, 3.85), M AI/NA (2.93, 95% CI: 2.70, 3.16), M not AI/NA (2.87, 95% CI: 2.57, 3.17), and Black (2.84, 95% CI: 2.66, 3.02) groups. Pairwise comparisons of mean differences were significant for Black-White (0.49, 95% CI: 0.24, 0.75, p < 0.001), M AI/NA-White (0.59, 95% CI: 0.04, 1.13, p = 0.025), and Black-Asian (0.54, 95% CI: 0.07, 1.01, p = 0.014) comparisons. Results from this study did not support our hypothesis, suggesting that the Multiracial population’s high ACE scores may not be driven primarily by those with AI/NA ancestry. Limited sample sizes in this study limited our ability to draw more conclusive inference. Future studies should repeat this disaggregation analysis in larger datasets, and explore other determinants to explain the high mean ACE scores among the Multiracial population.