Prevalence of exposure to potentially traumatic events in a healthy birth cohort of very young children in the northeastern United States
Open accessAbstract
Prevalence estimates of very young children's exposure to potentially traumatic events (PTEs) are limited. The study objective was to estimate the lifetime prevalence and correlates of noninterpersonal PTEs and violence exposure in a representative healthy birth cohort (ages 1–3 years) from an urban–suburban region of the United States (37.8% minority, 20.2% poverty). Parents completed 2 surveys approximately 1‐year apart. By 24–48 months of age, the prevalence of exposure was 26.3% (14.5% noninterpersonal, 13.8% violence). Exposure was common among children living in poverty (49.0% overall, 19.7% noninterpersonal, 33.7% violence). The most consistent factors associated with exposure were poverty, parental depressive symptoms, and single parenting. Findings underscore the potential for prevention and intervention in early childhood to advance public health and reduce morbidity.
The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.
Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.
Integrity signals
Registry
Cites
Statistics
Claims the paper makes
The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.
Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.
Claims other papers make about this one
Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?
One in four children will have experienced some sort of traumatic experience before their third birthday.
“Benjet et al. (2016) found that 82.7% of adults in the United States have experienced at least one traumatic event, and one in four children will have experienced some sort of traumatic experience before their third birthday (Douglas et al., 2021; Briggs-Gowan et al., 2010).”
From Trauma-Informed Research-Practice Partnership Building to Support Early Childhood Educators in an Appalachian Community (2023) · cites this paper as Briggs-Gowan et al., 2010
The Discussion reports that approximately one quarter of children in a healthy birth cohort in the northeastern United States had experienced a potentially traumatic event by ages 2–3. However, the reported 26.3% prevalence includes children surveyed at 24–48 months, so it does not establish that one in four had been exposed before their third birthday. The claim also generalizes beyond the cohort and describes potentially traumatic events as traumatic experiences. (LLM, conf=0.88)
Experimental — accuracy not yet measured
Self-check
Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.
The self-check needs the paper’s full text.
No citation lists for this paper
No citation lists for this paper yet — checked again daily.
References 34 · Cited by 125
Research works printed but not linked: 23
- Abidin RR 1990 Parenting Stress Index Short Form-Test manual Charlottesville, VA Pediatric Psychology Press
- Appleyard K Egeland B van Dulmen MH Sroufe LA 2005 When more is not better: The role of cumulative risk in child behavior outcomes Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry 46 235 245 15755300
- Beck AT Epstein N Brown G Steer RA 1988 An inventory for measuring clinical anxiety: Psychometric properties Journal of Consulting & Clinical Psychology 56 893 897 3204199
- Bonanno GA Mancini AD 2008 The human capacity to thrive in the face of potential trauma Pediatrics 121 369 375 18245429
- Christoffel KK 1990 Violent death and injury in US children and adolescents American Journal of Diseases of Children 144 697 706 2189298
- Copeland WE Keeler G Angold A Costello EJ 2007 Traumatic events and posttraumatic stress in childhood Archives of General Psychiatry 64 577 584 17485609
- Cunradi CB Caetano R Clark C Schafer J 2000 Neighborhood poverty as a predictor of intimate partner violence among White, Black, and Hispanic couples in the United States: A multilevel analysis Annals of Epidemiology 10 297 308 10942878
- Daviss WB Mooney D Racusin R Ford JD Fleischer A McHugo GJ 2000 Predicting posttraumatic stress after hospitalization for pediatric injury Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry 39 576 583 10802975
- De Bellis MD Van Dillen T 2005 Childhood post-traumatic stress disorder: An overview Child and Adolescent Psychiatric Clinics of North America 14 745 772 16171701
- Ford JD Stockton P Kaltman S Green BL 2006 Disorders of extreme stress (DESNOS) symptoms are associated with type and severity of interpersonal trauma exposure in a sample of healthy young women Journal of Interpersonal Violence 21 1399 1416 17057159
- Kessler RC Sonnega A Bromet E Hughes M Nelson CB 1995 Posttraumatic stress disorder in the National Comorbidity Survey Archives of General Psychiatry 52 1048 1060 7492257
- Lahey BB Flagg EW Bird HR Schwab-Stone ME Canino G Dulcan MK 1996 The NIMH Methods for the Epidemiology of Child and Adolescent Mental Disorders (MECA) Study: Background and methodology Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry 35 855 864 8768345
- Margolin G Gordis EB 2000 The effects of family and community violence on children Annual Review of Psychology 51 445 479 10751978
- Meiser-Stedman R Smith P Glucksman E Yule W Dalgleish T 2008 The posttraumatic stress disorder diagnosis in preschool- and elementary school-age children exposed to motor vehicle accidents American Journal of Psychiatry 165 1326 1337 18676592
- Myers JK Weissman MM 1980 Use of a self-report symptom scale to detect depression in a community sample American Journal of Psychiatry 137 1081 1084 7425160
- Scheeringa MS 2009 Posttraumatic stress disorder Zeanah CH Handbook of infant mental health 3rd 345 361 New York Guilford Press
- Scheidt PC Harel Y Trumble AC Jones DH Overpeck MD Bijur PE 1995 The epidemiology of nonfatal injuries among US children and youth American Journal of Public Health 85 932 938 7604916 PMC1615546
- Slep AM O’Leary SG 2005 Parent and partner violence in families with young children: Rates, patterns, and connections Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology 73 435 444 15982141
- Stoddard FJ Ronfeldt H Kagan J Drake JE Snidman N Murphy JM 2006 Young burned children: The course of acute stress and physiological and behavioral responses American Journal of Psychiatry 163 1084 1090 16741210
- Taylor L Zuckerman B Harik V Groves BM 1994 Witnessing violence by young children and their mothers Journal of Developmental and Behavioral Pediatrics 15 120 123 8034764
- Teicher MH Tomoda A Andersen SL 2006 Neurobiological consequences of early stress and childhood maltreatment: Are results from human and animal studies comparable? Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences 1071 313 323 16891580
- Zeanah CH 2000 Handbook of infant mental health 2nd New York Guilford Press
- Zero to Three, National Center for Infants, Toddlers, and Families 1994 Diagnostic classification: 0-3. Diagnostic classification of mental health and developmental disorders in infancy and early childhood Washington, DC Zero to Three Press
- Authors
- Briggs‐Gowan, M. J., Ford, J. D., Fraleigh, L., McCarthy, K., & Carter, A. S.
- Affiliations
- UConn Health (US)
- University of Massachusetts Boston (US)
- Corresponding author
- Briggs‐Gowan, Margaret J.
- Venue
- Journal of Traumatic Stress
- Publisher
- Wiley
- Published
- 2010-12
- Volume
- 23
- Issue
- 6
- Pages
- 725-733
- ISSN
- 0894-9867 (ISSN-L)
- 1573-6598
- PMC
- PMC5972451
- OpenAlex
- W2120620398
- Cited by
- 125
- References
- 34
- Citations by year
- 2026: 7 · 2025: 12 · 2024: 11 · 2023: 4 · 2022: 6 · 2021: 14 · 2020: 10 · 2019: 7 · 2018: 9 · 2017: 7 · 2016: 9 · 2015: 8 · 2014: 7 · 2013: 5 · 2012: 6
- FWCI
- 5.28
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
- Locations
- Journal of Traumatic Stress (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (acceptedVersion)
- PubMed Central (acceptedVersion)
- Funders
- National Institute of Mental Health (R01 MH55278, R01MH055278)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › Child Abuse and Trauma
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Research
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › Child and Adolescent Psychosocial and Emotional Development
- Keywords
- potentially traumatic events, early childhood, toddlers, violence exposure, poverty, parental depressive symptoms, single parenting, birth cohort, trauma prevalence, risk factors
- MeSH terms
- Adult, Child Welfare, Child, Preschool, Data Collection, Female, Humans, Infant, Male, New England, Poverty Areas, Wounds and Injuries, Cohort Studies, Young Adult
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›
Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review
