# Adverse Childhood Experiences, Adolescent and Caregiver Emotion Regulation, and Adolescent Physical and Mental Health

> **NIH NIH R21** · VANDERBILT UNIVERSITY · 2020 · $201,430

## Abstract

PROJECT SUMMARY
 Adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) involving threat and deprivation early in development have
pervasive and long-lasting negative effects on physical and mental health, including health risk behaviors,
increased levels of biomarkers for disease, depression, posttraumatic stress disorder, and disruptive behavior
disorders. The long-term harmful effects of early ACEs are mediated and moderated by biological,
psychological, behavioral, and environmental processes later in development. Specifically, stress sensitivity
models of risk have shown that the effects of early ACEs are exacerbated by exposure to stressful events and
chronic adversity, including additional exposure to ACEs, later in development, with early adolescence
representing a particularly vulnerable developmental period. Continued development of interventions to reduce
physical and mental health problems associated with early ACEs and later exposure to stress depends on
improved understanding of mechanisms of risk and resilience associated with exposure to stress during
adolescence. Recent research suggests that important target mechanisms for interventions involves processes
of emotion regulation (ER) and physiological reactivity (PR) in response to stress in adolescents and their
caregivers, as deficits and disruptions in these processes increase the risk for physical and mental health
problems associated with stress during adolescence (Compas et al., 2017). The proposed project will test a
comprehensive multi-method protocol that includes a novel laboratory paradigm using video-mediated recall
(VMR) and state-of-the-art measures to examine processes of emotion regulation in response to current
stress, along with closely related processes of physiological reactivity, in adolescents who have been exposed
to varying levels of ACEs early in development and their current caregivers. We will test the convergence of
multiple measures of ER in adolescents and their caregivers, provide an initial test of latent indicators of
adolescent and caregiver ER as predictors of symptoms of adolescent physical health problems and
psychopathology, and set the stage for larger longitudinal and intervention studies with adolescents who have
experienced early ACEs.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 9989144
- **Project number:** 5R21HD098454-02
- **Recipient organization:** VANDERBILT UNIVERSITY
- **Principal Investigator:** Bruce E Compas
- **Activity code:** R21 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2020
- **Award amount:** $201,430
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2019-08-05 → 2022-07-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/9989144

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 9989144, Adverse Childhood Experiences, Adolescent and Caregiver Emotion Regulation, and Adolescent Physical and Mental Health (5R21HD098454-02). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-28 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/9989144. Licensed CC0.

---

*[NIH grants dataset](/datasets/nih-grants) · CC0 1.0*