Adverse Childhood Experiences, Homeless Chronicity, and Age at Onset of Homelessness

• Main Author: Tucciarone, Joseph T., Jr.
• Format: Others
• Language: English
• Published: Digital Commons @ East Tennessee State University 2019
• Subjects: homelessness; adverse childhood experiences; ACEs; chronicity; homelessness onset; Community Health; Community Health and Preventive Medicine; Community Psychology; Developmental Psychology; Epidemiology; Health Services Administration; Health Services Research; Other Mental and Social Health; Other Psychology; Other Public Health; Public Health Education and Promotion; Social Psychology; Social Welfare; Social Work
• Online Access: https://dc.etsu.edu/etd/3534; https://dc.etsu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=4995&context=etd

Childhood adversity is associated with numerous negative outcomes across multiple domains, including mental and physical health, interrelationships, and social functioning. Notably, research suggests that childhood adversity has a dose-response relationship with these outcomes; that is, greater numbers of adverse experiences in childhood are associated with worse outcomes. These outcomes overlap with many risk factors of homelessness. This study sought to address two questions: 1) Does a dose-response relationship exist between childhood adversity and chronic homelessness? 2) Does childhood adversity negatively predict the age at which homelessness first occurs? Adults experiencing homeless who are accessing homeless services in the Tri-Cities area of Northeast Tennessee responded to a brief instrument that includes measures of homeless chronicity, Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs), and age of onset of homelessness. Although relationships between ACEs and homeless chronicity was not observed, a relationship did emerge between number of ACEs and number of episodes and number of ACEs and age at initial onset of homelessness.