Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) Operational Definitions and Scoring Childhood Experiences Survey
Individual Items
Q1: Family Financial Problems: ACE = Often or Very Often
Q2: Food Insecurity: ACE = Sometimes, Often, or Very Often
Q3: Homelessness: ACE = Rarely, Sometimes, Often or Very Often
Q4: Psychological Abuse: ACE = Often or Very Often*
Q5: Peer Victimization: ACE = Often or Very Often
Q6: Physical Neglect: ACE = Never, Rarely or Sometimes
Q7: Emotional Neglect: ACE = Never, Rarely, or Sometimes
Q8: Physical Abuse: ACE = Once or More than once*
Q9: Domestic Violence: ACE = Once or More than once*
Q10: Sexual Abuse: ACE = Once or More than once*
Q11: Household Mental Illness: ACE = Yes*
Q12: Household Alcohol Abuse: ACE = Yes
Q13: Household Drug Abuse: ACE = Yes
Q14: Household Crime: ACE = Yes*
Q15: Parental Divorce: ACE = Yes*
Q16: Parental Absence: ACE = Yes
Q17: Death of parent or sibling: ACE = Yes
Q18: Violent Crime Victimization: ACE = Yes
Aggregate Items
- Chronic or Severe Poverty: If ACE endorsed for Q1, Q2, or Q3
- Any Childhood Neglect: If ACE endorsed for Q6 or Q7
- Parent Alcohol or Substance Abuse: If ACE endorsed for Q12 or Q131
- Divorce or Parental Absence: If ACE endorsed for Q15 or Q16
*All 8 items included in Wave I of the Adverse Childhood Experiences study (see Felitti et al., 1998). Wave II of the ACE study added questions about physical and emotional neglect (See Dube et al., 2003).
For further information about this measure, contact: Dr. Joshua Mersky, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, mersky@uwm.edu