Daily health and well-being in adulthood and old age: The role of adverse childhood experiences

Abstract

How susceptible our daily affect is to fluctuations in physical health indicates how well we adapt to everyday health challenges. Adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) are known to have a lasting impact on everyday emotion regulation and adaptation across the lifespan, but less is known about whether and how such adversity is linked to the susceptibility of affect to everyday health challenges. This study therefore tested whether ACEs were associated with daily reports of positive and negative affect and examined weather they moderated emotional reactions to daily physical symptoms in adulthood and old age. We used data from the National Study of Daily Experiences 2 (NSDE-2) in which middle-aged and older adults (N = 2,022; M_age = 56 years; range: 33–84) reported symptoms and affect on eight consecutive evenings. Multi-level models indicated that cumulative ACEs as well as two individual childhood adversities (i.e. physical and sexual abuse by a parent) were independently associated with exacerbated increases in negative affect on days with more symptoms. Findings add to literature on the role of early adversity for the maintenance of everyday well-being and highlight the potential importance of such experiences for coping and adaption in the face of daily health challenges across adulthood and old age.