Adverse Childhood Experiences and children’s long-run outcomes: The buffering role of community participation

Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) is one of the social issues in the United States. Although there are some studies examining ACEs’ negative effects on people, there are still few researches about long-term effects of ACEs and how this society tackles this problem and cuts off the negative cycle of the ACEs. This study examined the long-term effects on educational attainment and mental health of young adults with adverse experiences in their childhood and a buffering effect of community participation. Linear regression model was used to observe association between ACEs and outcomes, and in the model with interaction terms of ACEs and community participation, if community participation can mitigate ACEs’ negative effects on outcomes was examined. While some negative association between ACEs and both outcomes were observed, no statistical evidence of a moderator effect of community participation was found. Based on the results, the importance of management of community activities and other possible ways of intervention was suggested.