Recent reports from the Center for Disease Control and Kaiser Permanente demonstrate that early life adverse experience leads to morbidity and mortality in adulthood. To date there are no objective tests that help care-givers or local child protective services make informed decisions for children with a history of abuse, neglect or trauma. This is the first report from a new group of trans-disciplinary investigators describing a new approach to identify the biological impact of childhood maltreatment using clinical pathology testing. Such new quantitative measurements will be useful to identify children at risk for poor mental and physical health outcomes and to follow response to interventions.
Keywords: Child abuse; Child maltreatment; Childhood neglect; Cortisol; DNA methylation; MR imaging.