MIDUS data indicate loneliness is a critical health risk for adults who experienced childhood trauma

• Curtis, A., Kirwan, E. M., Luchetti, M., Creaven, A.-M., Turiano, N., McGeehan, M., Graham, E. K., & O’Súilleabháin, P. S. (2025). Loneliness links adverse childhood experiences to mortality risk across 26 years. The Journals of Gerontology, Series B: Psychological Sciences and Social Sciences, 80(6).

Curtis et al. used data from the longitudinal cohort study, Midlife in the United States (MIDUS), to determine whether loneliness may be an indirect (mediating) pathway linking adverse childhood experiences (known as ACEs) and the risk of early death in adulthood. The initial baseline assessment of 7,000 Americans (aged 25–74) in MIDUS I (1995) provided Curtis et al. with information about participants’ ACEs. They also used loneliness data collected in MIDUS 2 (2004-2006), when about 5,000 (75 percent) of the participants were re-contacted. Since then, MIDUS researchers have continued to track study participants’ survival status using the National Death Index, and last updated the MIDUS Core Mortality study with this information in 2023. Curtis et al. used the mortality data through 2021 in their analysis. They found that loneliness is indeed a toxic pathway through which childhood misfortune translates into long-term physical health decline, including through biological and behavioral changes. While Curtis et al. looked at the impact of various ACEs, emotional abuse was the ACE that showed a particularly strong association with adult loneliness. Distributed by the NACDA archive, studies in the MIDUS series can be compared across study years in the MIDUS Colectica portal. And thousands more publications that make use of MIDUS data can be found on the series home page.

Posted March 12, 2026