Association between adverse childhood experiences and later-life cardiovascular diseases among middle-aged and older Chinese adults: The mediation effect of depressive symptoms

Background: To date, few studies have focused on examining either the direct or indirect effect of adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) on cardiovascular diseases (CVD). This study aimed to investigate the mediation effect of depressive symptoms as a mediator between ACEs and CVD.Methods: This study included a total of 12,981 participants from the 2011 to 2018 wave of the China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study (CHARLS). Depressive symptoms were examined using the 10-item short form of the Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale (CESD-10). The mediation effect analysis adjusted for potential confounding factors was conducted.Results: 6635 (51.11 %) of the participants reported 4 and more ACEs count. Participants with certain ACEs were significantly associated with later-life incident depressive symptoms and CVD. Depressive symptoms partially mediated [20.72 %, 95 % CI: (13.02 %-38.12 %)] of the association between self-reported health status and CVD, [0.72 %, 95 % CI: (13.02 %-38.12 %)] of the association between health limitation and CVD, and [22.24 %, 95 % CI: (14.35 %-59.29 %)] of the association between hunger and CVD. In addition, as ACEs count increased by 1 unit, participants had the increased risk of incident depressive symptoms [5.01 %, 95 % CI: (4.53 %-5.50 %)] and CVD [0.61 %, 95 % CI: (0.23 %-0.99 %)]. Limitations: Not all potential confounding factors were measured and adjusted in the analysis, and ACEs were collected retrospectively.Conclusions: ACEs are significantly associated with both onset and increased depressive symptoms and CVD, and depressive symptoms mediated the association between ACEs and incident CVD. Our results suggested that target mental health intervention programs should be delivered to ACEs populations.