MPHI’s Dr. Mat Edick appears on WILX

MPHI’s Center for Strategic Health Partnerships Mathew Edick, Ph.D. recently spoke on WILX’s Mid-Michigan Matters on News 10 First at Four with Taylor Gattoni about the $2.4 million his team was awarded for Preventing Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs). The award showcases the ongoing commitment at MPHI in promoting the well-being of Michigan’s children and families.

You can watch the interview here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nJDKhXPiKWg

ACEs are preventable, potentially traumatic events that occur in childhood (0-17 years) such as neglect, experiencing or witnessing violence, or having a family member attempt or die by suicide. Michigan is one of 17 states (2011-2020) that reported higher levels of Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) with 19.8% of Michigan adults in 2019 reported experiencing four or more ACEs in childhood and 68.3% reported experiencing at least one ACE.

Michigan is working to prevent ACEs via:

Surveillance activities: The Michigan Public Health Institute is adding questions about experiencing ACEs to the Michigan Youth Risk Behavior Survey to provide representative state-wide estimates of ACEs for Michigan public high school students. The Michigan Public Health Institute is also using data from Kids Count and the U.S. Census Bureau American Community Survey to better understand risk and protective factors across the social ecological model for ACEs in Michigan.

Prevention strategies and approaches: The Michigan Public Health Institute is promoting social norms that protect against violence and adversity through a public education campaign to raise community awareness of ACEs and how to prevent them and ensuring a strong start for children through early childhood home visitation by integrating ACE prevention into the Michigan Home Visiting Initiative’s care plan.

Mathew J. Edick, PhD, Director of Center for Strategic Health Partnerships emphasized, “There are many efforts underway across the state of Michigan aimed at preventing adverse childhood experience and promoting positive childhood experience. One major barrier in this work is that data needed to understand the state and local needs is hard to put your hands on, and if you are not a data scientist, even if you can put your hands on it, it may not be meaningful or useful. Through this generous funding from CDC, we will be able to make data available to all Michigan citizens in a way that is understandable and actionable. Overcoming this critical barrier in making data available and accessible paves the way for highly impactful community programming that cultivates safe and nurturing environments for all of Michigan’s children.”

Source: Swedo EA, Aslam MV, Dahlberg LL, Niolon PH, Simon TR, Guinn AS, Mercy JA. Prevalence of Adverse Childhood Experiences Among U.S. Adults – Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance Survey, 2011-2020. MMWR