Katie A. McLaughlin, Lab Director, was the Guest Editor of a special issue of Psychosomatic Medicine on Mechanisms Linking Early-Life Adversity with Physical Health along with Nicole Bush and Richard Lane. In the last 2 decades, a veritable explosion of research into the early-life determinants of physical health has demonstrated that social and environmental factors in early life play a critical role in predicting morbidity and mortality across the life course. In particular, exposure to adverse experiences in childhood—including poverty, abuse, neglect, and violence—has been associated with elevated risk for the onset of a wide range of physical health problems in adulthood. Despite strong evidence for the links between early-life adversity and health outcomes, the mechanisms that underlie these associations remain poorly understood. Exploring these mechanisms is the goal of this special issue of Psychosomatic Medicine.  The articles in this special issue draw upon a diverse set of samples to examine a wide range of potential mechanisms operating at multiple levels of influence, spanning physiological and psychosocial pathways that might underlie the associations of early adversity with health.

Articles from the special issue are freely available for the next month here: