Pregnant Women's Perspectives on Screening for ACEs and Resilience During Prenatal Care
About
This presentation will describe a series of pilot studies that incorporated screening for Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) and resilience as part of routine prenatal care. These pilots built a foundation for Kaiser Permanente Northern California (KPNC) to expand ACE and resilience screening to all pregnant patients as part of standard care in 2021. The presenters will share data on the acceptability and feasibility of ACE screening in standard prenatal care, provide an overview of how ACEs are associated with perinatal health, and describe how resilience potentially moderates these associations. Finally, they will discuss lessons learned from the implementation of ACE and resilience screening for all pregnant patients in KPNC and review the next steps for research and clinical practice.
Learning Objectives
- Describe patient and clinician perspectives on screening for ACEs and resilience as part of routine prenatal care at KPNC.
- Explain high-level associations found between ACEs, resilience levels, and mental health and medical conditions among pregnant patients at KPNC.
- Describe the regional rollout of ACE screening in prenatal care at KPNC, implications for implementing ACE and resilience screening in prenatal care settings, and next steps for research and clinical practice.
Professional Credit
- This activity provides the following types of credit: AMA, AAPA, APA, ANCC, ASWB, ABIM-MOC, ABP-MOC.
- 1.0 credits are available.
- Activity document
Featuring
Kelly Young-Wolff, PhD, MPH is a licensed clinical psychologist and research scientist at KPNC’s Division of Research. She is also an Adjunct Associate Professor in the Department of Psychiatry, University of California, San Francisco; Consulting Assistant Professor at the Stanford University School of Medicine; and Associate Professor, Kaiser Permanente Bernard J. Tyson School of Medicine. Dr. Young-Wolff’s research interests include investigating how stress and trauma and health-related policies shape disparities in the onset and course of substance use and psychiatric disorders among vulnerable populations, including pregnant individuals and adolescents. Dr. Young-Wolff helped to lead several pilot studies that evaluated the feasibility and acceptability of ACE screening for pregnant individuals in several medical centers in KPNC. This research contributed to the decision to universally screen all KPNC pregnant patients for ACEs as part of standard prenatal care.
For Carey Watson, MD, new medical director of Kaiser Permanente’s Family Violence Prevention Program, any domestic or intimate partner violence prevention is core to general health. Anyone experiencing violence at home has a health impact, as a result. An ob-gyn at Kaiser Permanente’s Antioch Medical Center for 9 years, Dr. Watson has also been an intimate partner violence (IPV) champion for nearly as long and is a national expert on strangulation injuries.