As a person who has experienced childhood adversity, I was intrigued when I saw the title of this book. While I do like to read for pleasure, I also love to read nonfiction books to broaden my perspective. This book definitely broadened my perspective on the way I think about adverse childhood experiences.
Nadine Harris is an African American physician that opened a pediatric practice in the under served community of Bayview Hunters Point in San Francisco. After an encounter with a young patient named Diego….who seemed to be a normal kid but had stopped growing for unknown reasons, she started to delve deeper to find out why. It turns out Diego was growing normally until after he experienced sexual abuse. It was then that Dr. Harris correlated this adverse childhood experience(ACE) with his growth pattern.
Dr. Harris then proceeds to expound more on ACE and how it affects a wide range of people and not just people from less fortunate socioeconomic backgrounds. This was not a poor people problem by far. She found during her research that having an ACE score of two or more doubles someone’s likelihood of developing an autoimmune disease and ACES in and of themselves are a risk factor for many of the most common and serious diseases in the U.S. regardless of income, or race, or access to care. She also examined toxic stress response and how it affects the bodies and minds of people.
This book was very informative and I like that she tells not only her patients stories, but her own story, as well as stories from various people she comes across during her research (families, friends, and even colleagues). I think some portions of the book can get mundane for people that are not in the Healthcare arena, and even for some of us who are. However, she did a great job bringing this serious health dilemma to the forefront and doing her best to reduce it to layman’s terms to make it understandable for all. This book includes an ACE score-sheet to evaluate yourself or someone you know for ACE. This book definitely will make me take closer looks at ACE in my life and people that I know and it also explained some things for me that previously I couldn’t make sense of like family members dying from autoimmune diseases who seemingly had no risk factors. A lot of times we look at the surface issues but not the stories underneath….our stories are the wells that connect all of our communities…..and sometimes the wells are deeper and more toxic than we realize. A lot of doctors are treating the symptoms but not the actual causes…….and it is high time we get to the root.
Star Rating:
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Until Next Read,
Bibliophile On A Budget 