Adverse childhood experiences and adult health
California statewide
As published by the state
19.0% (18.5 to 19.5)
4 or more ACEs, 2024 to 2025, adults
This dashboard (CDC files)
19.2%
Percent of adults with 4+ ACEs, all CDC years pooled, n = 1,444
About this data
Number of adverse childhood experiences (8 point scale), adults, by county and region
UCLA Center for Health Policy Research, AskCHIS. California Health Interview Survey. 2022 to 2023, 2024 to 2025. 5 measures. Retrieved 2026-10-27.
A different survey from BRFSS: CHIS interviews by web and telephone from an address-based sample, so levels differ from the dashboard's CDC-derived California values and should not be compared with them or shown as a trend against them. AskCHIS publishes the ACE score groups only; the individual adverse experiences are not published below the state in any public California product, so this state has no counterpart to the per-item measures the dashboard shows elsewhere. CHIS revised its 2021 to 2023 files in October 2026; these exports post-date that revision.
Publisher's page4 or more ACEs by area
2024 to 2025, adults; ranked
Areas are ranked by the published value and each bar takes its area's map color; hover or focus a row for its 95% confidence interval where the publisher gave one. The tick is the statewide figure from the same source. Areas the publisher withheld show as "--".
Percent (%)
Shasta County
35.7
Butte County
32.0
Del Norte, Siskiyou, Lassen, Trinity, Modoc, Plumas, Sierra counties
31.3
Mendocino County
30.0
Sonoma County
27.9
Humboldt County
26.7
Yuba County
26.2
Tuolumne, Calaveras, Amador, Inyo, Mariposa, Mono, Alpine counties
25.8
Kern County
25.6
San Luis Obispo County
24.8
Solano County
24.3
Monterey County
23.3
Lake County
23.1
Sacramento County
23.1
San Benito County
23.1
Tulare County
23.0
San Bernardino County
22.7
Tehama, Glenn, Colusa counties
22.7
Riverside County
21.6
Fresno County
20.7
San Diego County
20.1
Merced County
20.0
Imperial County
19.8
Yolo County
19.7
Santa Barbara County
18.6
Sutter County
18.2
Alameda County
18.1
San Joaquin County
18.1
Kings County
18.0
Los Angeles County
17.9
Nevada County
17.5
Ventura County
17.4
Santa Cruz County
17.2
El Dorado County
16.9
Contra Costa County
16.2
Orange County
16.0
Placer County
15.8
Madera County
15.5
San Francisco County
15.4
Stanislaus County
15.0
Marin County
14.4
Santa Clara County
13.1
Napa County
12.3
San Mateo County
12.2
Selected area
· 2024 to 2025, adults
Each bar is the value the state published for this area; hover or focus a row for its 95% confidence interval where one was published. The tick is the statewide value from the same source. A measure not asked in the selected years shows its latest.
Select an area on the map.
The ACE score follows CDC's scoring of the BRFSS ACE module, collapsing 11 survey items into 8 categories: sexual abuse (3 items), physical abuse, substance abuse (2 items), emotional abuse, witnessed intimate partner violence, household mental illness, incarceration, and parental divorce. Only respondents with valid responses to all 11 survey items are scored. The average is weighted using BRFSS survey weights to be representative of each state's adult population.
Survey years 2009 through 2012 and 2019 onward are pooled. One caution about comparing across that gap: CDC changed the wording of the physical-abuse question between the two periods. Even in states that took part in both periods, the share of adults who reported it was about nine percentage points higher from 2019 onward than in 2009 through 2012. The question about adults hurting each other barely changed, and no other ACE question rose by more than about half as much. So physical abuse, and to a lesser degree the overall score, cannot be compared cleanly across the two periods.
Age matters when comparing states: older adults report fewer ACEs and have more long-term health conditions, and states differ in how old their adults are. Figures on the Explore page are not adjusted for age, so differences between states there partly reflect age. The Compare page adjusts for age by default (to the 2000 U.S. standard population), so every state is compared as if it had the same mix of ages, and it can be switched to show unadjusted figures.
Higher scores indicate more types of adversity experienced during childhood. Read more about adverse childhood experiences.
The ACE score follows CDC's scoring of the BRFSS ACE module, collapsing 11 survey items into 8 categories: sexual abuse (3 items), physical abuse, substance abuse (2 items), emotional abuse, witnessed intimate partner violence, household mental illness, incarceration, and parental divorce. Only respondents with valid responses to all 11 survey items are scored. The average is weighted using BRFSS survey weights to be representative of each state's adult population.
Survey years 2009 through 2012 and 2019 onward are pooled. One caution about comparing across that gap: CDC changed the wording of the physical-abuse question between the two periods. Even in states that took part in both periods, the share of adults who reported it was about nine percentage points higher from 2019 onward than in 2009 through 2012. The question about adults hurting each other barely changed, and no other ACE question rose by more than about half as much. So physical abuse, and to a lesser degree the overall score, cannot be compared cleanly across the two periods.
Age matters when comparing states: older adults report fewer ACEs and have more long-term health conditions, and states differ in how old their adults are. Figures on the Explore page are not adjusted for age, so differences between states there partly reflect age. The Compare page adjusts for age by default (to the 2000 U.S. standard population), so every state is compared as if it had the same mix of ages, and it can be switched to show unadjusted figures.
Higher scores indicate more types of adversity experienced during childhood. Read more about adverse childhood experiences.