NICAS
Northern Ireland Childhood Adversity Study
It is now well established globally that adverse childhood experiences are a significant public health concern. Our recent work estimates the occurrence of adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) such as abuse, neglect, household dysfunction, peer and community violence, to be high in young adults in Northern Ireland. Over 26% experience at least one ACE, and the most common adverse experience, reported by 34% of the sample, was growing up mental illness in the family. One quarter of young people reported growing up with four or more ACEs, and these young people were found to be at significantly increased risk of engaging in health harming behaviours, psychopathology and lower educational attainment.
Dr Teresa Rushe is PI of the Northern Ireland Childhood Adversity Study (NICAS) and along with Dr Tara O Neill (Research Fellow) conducts research into the psychological outcomes of growing up in adversity, as well as the mediators and moderators of outcome in high risk populations in Northern Ireland.
The Northern Ireland Childhood Adversity Study (NICAS) is a case-control study utilising both retrospective accounts and current neuropsychological functioning to examine childhood predictors, mediators and moderators of outcome and investigate the relative contributions of educational/occupational, behavioural and psychological variables in the relationship. The participants consist of "high-risk" young adults aged 18-25 from communities across Northern Ireland, recruited via our local collaborators; NEW LIFE Counselling, Youth Action and St Peters Immaculata Youth Centre. Participants in the control sample will be matched on demograhics such as age, gender, religion and super output area (SOA) in order to portray the diversity of childhood adversity in Northern Ireland. This framework has the capacity to ensure a broad age range, an up-to-date contemporary outlook, representation across geographical locations, and various configurations of adjustment are captured. Thus, our study has the potential to provide methodological and conceptual advances within this important developmental period.
Further, evidence from neuroscience, molecular biology, genomics, and epigenetics indicate that early childhood experiences ‘get under the skin’ and thereby their influence can extend over a lifetime. Our research will also examine biological measures including, cortisol (as a measure of stress reactivity), telomere length (as an indicator of cellular aging) and DNA (to assess specific hypotheses concerning epigenetic changes.