Two top-ranked University of California medical centers – UCLA and UC San Francisco – are collaborating with the California Department of Health Care Services and Office of the California Surgeon General on a multi-campus initiative addressing the impact of Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) and other causes of toxic stress on health.
The UCLA/UCSF ACEs Aware Family Resilience Network (UCAAN), which is receiving $41 million in first-year state funding, brings its wealth of expertise and resources to the state’s ACEs Aware initiative, which trains clinicians in ACEs screening for both children and adults.
Research shows that experiences such as abuse, neglect, or having a parent who is struggling with addiction can stimulate the toxic stress response and significantly increase the risk of chronic health conditions, including heart disease, diabetes, depression and asthma.
UCAAN aims to leverage both UC campuses’ expertise to develop, promote, and sustain evidence-based methods to screen for and treat the impacts of childhood adversity. The resulting resources will enable community partners and providers statewide to support routine ACEs screening and trauma-informed clinical care.
The initiative is led by co-principal investigators Shannon Thyne, MD, professor of pediatrics at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, and Edward Machtinger, MD, professor of medicine at UCSF and director of the UCSF Center to Advance Trauma-Informed Health Care.