Research Project
Effects of Adverse Childhood Experiences on the Workforce
The issue of adverse childhood experiences has continued to gain lots of popularity in the recent decades. These adverse childhood experiences are categorized into different categories. The first category is household dysfunction that encompasses such issues such as substance abuse, criminal behavior, parental separation and divorce, battered mothers, and mental illness. The second category is abuse that is made up of several perspectives such as emotional, sexual, and physical abuse. The third category is neglect that is made up of two parts namely emotional and physical negligence. All these ACEs affect an individual at a personal level as an employee and thus affect the workforce as a whole because of the eminent interdependence and teamwork among the workforce obliged in our world today.
According to Marie-Mitchell and O'Connor the percentage composition of categories of household dysfunction are as follows; substance abuse is at 27 percent, criminal behavior is at 6 percent mental illness is at 17 percent parental separation or divorce is at 23 percent and battered mother is at 13 percent. According to a study by Anda et al., the percentage composition of categories of abuse is as follows. Psychological abuse is at 11 percent, physical abuse is at 28 percent, and sexual abuse is at 21 percent. Similarly, Marie-Mitchell and O'Connor assert that the categories of neglect by parents are as follows; emotional neglect at 15 percent and physical neglect at 10 percent.
The largest examination of adverse childhood experience effects on adults carried out over the social, economic, and medical lifespan was done by Anda et al. involving 17,337 participants. The study proved that ACEs are rampant among the societal members, though largely unrecognized. These ACEs are among the highest predictors of death, social functioning, diseases, medical care expenditure and well-being at an advanced age. Much social and public health problems evident in many adults are as a result of ACEs that these adults encountered at a tender age (Devaney et al.). As the study proves, the presence of one ACE creates an 87 percent possibility of the presence of another category of the above described ACEs (Vincent). The presence of a second ACE creates a 50 percent possibility of the presence of a third category of ACE. The ACEs cause depression, suicide attempts, hallucinations as a result of drug abuse, impaired childhood memory, risky behaviors that leads to addictions such as; engaging in sexual behaviors, health risks such as obesity because of overeating when in depression, risk of perpetration of domestic violence in future, impaired work performance and disease prevalence.
According to Anda et al., all these ACEs contribute to impairment of workforce performance in several ways. This array of personal factors affects the workforce adversely on a personal basis a situation that affects the workforce as a whole because of the interdependence among the workforce. According to Vincent, "the complexity and team interaction inherent in many current jobs have increased the importance of personal and interpersonal factors in the workplace and for this reason, modern employee assistance programs offer help for emotional, family, and marital problems as well as for substance abuse and financial stress." Deprived interpersonal skills, substance abuse, emotional distress, and occasional somatic symptoms all as a result of ACEs can adversely affect the workforce by compromising their performance and productivity. This in turn adversely affects the profitability of the business or the organization and compromises national productivity as a whole.
As Vincent asserts, "Chronic back pain in the workforce is estimated to cost US businesses as much as $28 billion per year; depression and its work related outcomes-absenteeism, reduced productivity, and medical expenses-are estimated to cost as much as $44 billion per year; and chemical dependency is estimated to cost $246 billion per year." These enormous losses transpire despite the subsistence of workplace protection programs and the highly expensive schemes of medical care in the globe. A study carried out by Anda showed that "child abuse and household dysfunction are common and have long-term effects that are highly disruptive to workers' health and well-being and as such, these adverse childhood experiences merit serious attention from the business community, labor leaders, the everyday practitioners of medicine, and government agencies."
As studies on families and children wellbeing, it is clear that children from families with fewer turbulence occasions during childhood yield the best outcomes in workforce performance during their adulthood compared to adults whose families experienced frequent turbulent episodes. Additionally, as Brooks-Gunn, Craigie and Waldfogel assert "Many studies concur that traditional families with two married parents tend to yield the best outcomes for children who form part of a highly productive workforce during their adulthood." Among the mechanisms that are likely to cause the connections between family stability, child well-being and workforce outcomes during adulthood as stipulated by Brooks-Gunn, Craigie and Waldfogel are "parental resources, parental mental health, parental relationship quality, parenting quality, and father involvement."
Under parental resources, studies show that in fragile families such as those exposed to drug abuse or are headed by single parents have fewer resources at their disposal and as such, "these families face disproportionate risk of economic disadvantage in a variety of ways ranging from less money for books, clothes, and extracurricular activities to living in poorer school districts and neighborhoods" (Brooks-Gunn, Craigie and Waldfogel). This is so because, in such a household, there is only one adult who can engage in economic activities for family upkeep. The situation is worse in families whose parents abuse drugs since they use a large portion of their economic gains to buy drugs and thus leave little for use at home. This culminates to negligence and inadequate attendance of the basic needs of such children.
When these children grow up, they become highly susceptible to subscribe to substance and drug abuse as a way of relieving their deeply-accumulated depression of their childhood. With frequent drug abuse behavior, they are highly likely to develop addictions and thus become over-reliant on drugs. This situation in turn leads to compromise in productivity and performance of these individuals as part of the workforce of an organization or the country. Drug abusers are highly susceptible to develop health complications and thus cost the individual, the organization, and the country a lot of finances in treating such complications leading to compromised performance and productivity of an individual, the organization, and the country as a whole. Also, such individuals become difficult to relate with and incorporate in a teamwork of an organization since they are highly susceptible to work in antisocial ways and are difficult to understand unless with the involvement of a professional. This endeavor may be costly and thus affect the profitability of an individual organization greatly. Similarly, the antisocial aspect of such an individual may adversely affect the performance of the workforce in a team especially because most of the activities of organizations nowadays rely heavily on the excellent teamwork of the workforce in different departments and on diverse tasks.
The parental mental health situation is another aspect that contributes to either the wellbeing of a child or exposes him or her to adverse childhood experiences that eventually leads to compromised and lowly productive workforce. Children from families that are marred with drug abuse cases, divorced parents, battered mothers, sexual and physical abuses are reported to develop more psychological and depression problems than the stable families (Devaney et al.). These problems greatly compromise the productivity ability of the children who experience these situations after they become part of the workforce during their adulthood. This assertion is true because of several reasons. First, such children may develop depression and may harbor anguish in them from their children. When they grow up and become part of the workforce, the depression may have prolonged to a situation that is uncontrollable or that requires medication or frequent therapy sessions. As such, these individuals become hard to retain in employment since they may be difficult to associate to where teamwork is required. Also, their unhealthy mind will compromise their productivity in the workforce.
Second, such individuals may unleash their childhood anguish on their workmates thus becoming impossible to associate with or work with especially in a group. Third, such individuals may indulge in drugs such as alcohol as an avenue for temporarily escaping their stressed life, depression, or deeply harbored anguish. With frequent use of drugs, such individuals may develop addiction and thus become over-reliant on such drugs. Reliance on drugs compromises the effectiveness of a person in the delivery of services and fulfillment of workforce responsibilities. This is so because it requires a sober and sound mind to undertake the required tasks and responsibilities with efficiency and articulate precision. Similarly, overreliance on drugs may cause frequent absenteeism when the individual overuses such drugs such as alcohol. Such an occurrence highly compromises the ability of the workforce to fully engage in activities that guarantee high productivity. This assertion is true because whatever the tasks that the individual would have engaged on that day are either shared among the present workforce or postponed.
The other aspect is the quality of parental relationship during childhood. As studies on the effects of quality of parental relationship to childhood development shows, adjustments and disagreements related to such occurrences such as divorce in a family is a source of stress for the family's children that may impede their academic excellence and may translate to early family formation in an attempt to run away from such adverse situations (Devaney et al.). This situation automatically leads to loss of highly learned workforce in the country. Similarly, children who experience a lack of positive relationship between parents are likely to harbor anger and frustration, which they may pour out on other employees during their adulthood after they are employed (Devaney et al.). This factor may greatly inhibit their success in climbing up the career ladder, a situation that may further compromise their productivity as a workforce of an organization.
The fourth aspect that has a direct effect on the workforce in connection to childhood adverse experience is family stability. Family stability denotes the situation of whether the child grew up under the care of the same parents that he or she was with at the time of his or her birth. As Brooks-Gunn, Craigie and Waldfogel assert, research on the effect of family stability on the child shows that "children will do better, on average, with stable parents because change can be disruptive to children and families and also because new partners coming into the household may be not as good caretakers as parents who have been with the children since birth." Changes in the family affect its stability because of the stress that the children experience as a result of a change in structure. These changes in family structures are in most cases caused by such situations such as divorce.
Stability of the family structure is a vital requirement for the wellbeing of a child when growing up. As such, unstable family structure translates to adverse experience on children and thus may cause stress. Stress is a predictor factor in causing poor performance of the child in the workforce during his or her adulthood. Similarly, the stress caused as a result of the unstable family structure may inhibit the ability of a child in scoring excellently at school. Because of this poor performance, the ability of the child to become part of highly productive and effective workforce is compromised. This situation takes place through the inability of the child to secure his prospective career as a result of failure to achieve the required qualifications caused by the compromised ability of performance in school because of stress, depression or frustration. The situation may also occur as a result of reduced enthusiasm for work as a result of stress or depression, a situation that compromises the workforce of a country. Stress or depression that the children harbor as a result of unstable family structures may also lead to increased accidents at workplace. These accidents may lead to death or maiming of employees a situation that compromises the workforce of an organization and the country in general.
The fifth aspect is parents' involvement in the affairs of the children and, in particular, father's involvement. As Vincent asserts, research proves that the involvement of fathers in the growth of the child is vital but unfortunately, this involvement diminishes as the children grow older. As Brooks-Gunn, Craigie and Waldfogel assert, "Marcia Carlson and Sara McLanahan found that by age five, nearly two-fifths of children of unwed parents had no regular contact with their fathers in the past two years while other two-fifths were seeing their father on a regular basis." A father who gets actively involved in the upbringing of the child even if he isn't residing in the house has numerous benefits to the child in terms of his or her progress and health wellbeing. This assertion is true because father's involvement supplements the quality of parenting by the mother.
As Devaney, John et al. assert, "When a father is a resident, the quality of his parenting is likely to be an important input into child health and development and so too is the quality of his relationship with the mother." For these reasons, the absence of the father is detrimental to a child's upbringing since the quality of the mother's upbringing is not supplemented. Similarly, there are some issues in life that a mother cannot fulfill in the child's life and can only be done by the father. For instance, the mother cannot teach a boy child how to behave like a man as he grows up. Also, the mother cannot teach a girl child, from a man's perspective, on how to socialize with men freely without being taken advantage of by them. Because of this deficiency, the child may have problems relating to others freely when he or she grows up. This situation will compromise his or her performance in work especially on the tasks that require a high level of socialization and intensive interdependence among the workforce.
Additionally, studies prove that family dysfunctions that exposure children to adverse experiences such as sexual, physical, and emotional abuse cause adverse health complications during their adulthood (Devaney et al.). Such complications include poor health, poor mental development, functional limitation, permanent physical deformity, and chronic diseases. Given that childhood experiences lay a significant foundation of the child's adulthood, the economic effects of Adverse Childhood Experience are far-reaching. As such, Adverse Childhood Experiences causes enormous economic costs translated in terms of lost workforce productivity, tax revenues, and augmented expenditure on health care and safety programs. Adverse Childhood Experiences are also linked to curtailed adaptability and augmented anger hostility, social isolation, and dissociation. As such, the socialization and high interdependence obliged by a workforce of the current world is highly limited and thus compromising on the maximum productivity ability of the workforce.
Similarly, Adverse Childhood Experiences have been cited as the main cause of fatal deaths by suicide or preventable accidents. According to World Health Organization as quoted by Devaney et al., "suicide is an act with a fatal outcome which the deceased, knowing or expecting a fatal outcome had initiated and carried out with the purpose of provoking the change that he desired." Evidence from research suggests that the central causes of suicidal and accidental deaths are early childhood adversities and genetic predispositions among other factors. This adversity is usually as a result of Adverse Childhood Experiences that make these children to harbor anguish, frustrations, and anger that leads them to commit suicide or cause accidental deaths that might have been prevented. The loss of such individuals is very detrimental on the workforce of a country in terms of reduced workers that would have helped the country through the contribution of their knowledge as well as tax revenue that would be used for development.
Other studies assert that the development of psychological and individual resources that inform the decision-making process of a person and accumulation of different cultural, human, and social capitals that are vital in ones thinking ability take place during early childhood. As such, adverse childhood experiences compromises on the development of these vital resources, a situation that inhibits the ability of the child to make sound decisions during his or her adulthood. For this reason, the ability of such individuals in quality sound decisions when in the workforce is inhibited. This situation leads to a compromised workforce that would otherwise be effective in making quality sound decisions.
Conclusion
In conclusion, there are different categories of Adverse Childhood Experiences that may affect the workforce in one way or the other. The first category is household dysfunction that encompasses such issues such as substance abuse, criminal behavior, parental separation and divorce, battered mothers, and mental illness. The second category is abuse that is made up from several perspectives such as emotional, sexual, and physical abuse. The third category is neglect that is made up of two parts namely emotional and physical negligence. These categories have different aspects such as parental mental health situation, parents' involvement, family stability, quality of parental relationship during childhood, and parental resources. Abnormalities in these aspects affect the children emotionally, socially, or physically. Such abnormalities compromise the workforce in several ways such as reduced interdependence, loss of potentially productive workers due to suicides and accidental deaths, and compromised ability to make quality sound decisions that would be effective in bringing the required change. All these are as discussed in details in the above essay.
Works Cited
Anda, Robert F. "Childhood Abuse, Household Dysfunction, And Indicators Of Impaired Adult Worker Performance." N.p., 2004. Web. 10 Nov. 2015.
Anda, Robert F. et al. "The Enduring Effects Of Abuse And Related Adverse Experiences In Childhood." Eur Arch Psychiatry Clin Neurosci 256.3 (2005): 174-186. Web.
Brooks-Gunn, Jeanne, Terry-Ann Craigie, and Jane Waldfogel. "Fragile Families And Child Wellbeing." The Future of children / Center for the Future of Children, the David and Lucile Packard Foundation 20.2 (2010): 87. Web. 10 Nov. 2015.
Devaney, John et al. "Still Vulnerable: The Impact Of Early Childhood Experiences On Adolescent Suicide And Accidental Death." Scie.org.uk. N.p., 2012. Web. 10 Nov. 2015.
Marie-Mitchell, Ariane, and Thomas G. O'Connor. "Adverse Childhood Experiences: Translating Knowledge Into Identification Of Children At Risk For Poor Outcomes." Academic Pediatrics 13.1 (2013): 14-19. Web.
Vincent J. Felitti. "Adverse Childhood Experiences And Their Relationship To Adult Well-Being And Disease : Turning Gold Into Lead." N.p., 2012. Web. 10 Nov. 2015.
