Are adverse childhood experiences associated with trajectories of social isolation in adulthood? Evidence from two...

Social isolation is a contemporary public health crisis. However, we know little about trajectories of social isolation over time, and even less about early life precursors of these trajectories. Adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) are known predictors of a variety of poor economic, social, and health outcomes throughout adulthood. Informed by the life course perspective and stress process theory, we examine whether number of ACEs is an early life precursor of trajectories of social isolation throughout adulthood.

We used longitudinal national data from both the Midlife in the United States (MIDUS) waves 1-3 (1995-2014) (ages 25-74 at baseline) and the Health and Retirement Study (HRS) waves 8-15 (2006-2020) (ages 51 and older). Growth curve modeling was used to examine the association between the number of ACEs and social isolation trajectories throughout adulthood.

In both the MIDUS and HRS, social isolation increases over time among U.S. adults, with a steeper trajectory at older ages. A higher number of ACEs is associated with higher levels of social isolation throughout adulthood. However, in both datasets, there was no statistically significant interaction between ACEs and time-the association between ACEs and adult social isolation persists but does not accelerate throughout adulthood.

Because the gap in social isolation between those with more and fewer ACEs is already pronounced at baseline among MIDUS and HRS adults, approaches to reducing adult social isolation need to address circumstances, such as ACEs, that launch trajectories earlier in the life course.