Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) in Unhoused Children Increase Odds of Psychiatric Illness, Physical Illness, and Psychiatric Admission

Unhoused children and adolescents have high rates of adverse childhood experiences (ACEs). The objective of this study was to characterize a large cohort of unhoused children and investigate rates of psychiatric diagnoses, medical diagnoses, and utilization of emergency department (ED) resources depending on the presence of additional documented ACEs. A retrospective cohort of all unhoused children who presented to the ED of a large Midwestern health system from January 2014 to July 2019 were included. Unhoused status was determined by address field or ICD-10 code for homelessness (Z59.0). Demographics and ED visits were extracted from the electronic health record. Past medical history, ACEs, chief complaint (CC), length of stay (LOS), imaging, and labs were extracted by chart review. T-tests, chi square tests, and Fisher’s exact tests were completed for each sub-analysis. Unhoused children with at least one additional ACE had higher odds of the following psychiatric disorders: depression (OR = 5.2, 95% CI = 3.4- 7.9), anxiety (OR = 3.4, 95% CI = 32.1–5.5), behavioral disorder (OR = 7.2, 95% CI = 35.1- 10.4), psychoses (OR = 6.0, 1.9–18.4), bipolar disorder (OR = 19.8, 95% CI = 34.6–84.9), suicidal ideation (OR = 8.0, 95% CI = 34.8–13.4), post-traumatic stress disorder (OR = 10.1, 95% CI = 35.4–18.6), and attention deficit hyperactive disorder (OR = 4.1, 3.0–5.7). Patients with additional documented ACEs were also more likely to have a prior psychiatric admission (p < 0.001). Unhoused children and adolescents with exposure to additional documented ACEs are more likely to have some serious psychiatric and medical diagnoses compared to other unhoused children.