SynthesisPloS one2021
The association of child maltreatment and systemic inflammation in adulthood: A systematic review.
Synthesis in PloS one, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 36 papers.
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
36 citing papers in PubMed, 61 citations in OpenAlex.
- Trial
- Early life trauma and endometriosis: A case-control study on type and timing of adverse experiences.Archives of women's mental health · 2026Article
- The Transdiagnostic Association Between Childhood Trauma and Accelerated Brain Aging in Two Independent Datasets.Schizophrenia bulletin · 2026Article
- Mapping links between childhood maltreatment and biopsychosocial health in pregnancy: a network analysis.Archives of women's mental health · 2026Article
- Redox dysregulation, inflammation and mental health in adults with high risk of childhood maltreatment.European child & adolescent psychiatry · 2026Article
- Maternal adversity and peripheral proinflammatory cytokine concentrations in pregnancy.Brain, behavior, & immunity - health · 2026Article
- Childhood Maltreatment and Cognitive Performance in Bipolar Disorder: The Potential Role of Inflammation.Acta psychiatrica Scandinavica · 2026Article
- Review
- The Effects of Childhood Abuse on Emerging Adulthood Inflammation: Investigating Protective Characteristics.Child maltreatment · 2025Article
- Lifetime Exposure to Violence and Early Cardiometabolic Risk Factors in a Healthy Swedish Cohort.Journal of the American Heart Association · 2025Article
- Latent classes of adverse childhood experiences and changes in inflammation across middle age among urban-dwelling adults.Brain, behavior, and immunity · 2025Article
- Child Maltreatment and Whole-person Health: Investigation of Psychosocial Buffers Using Structural Equation Modeling.Biopsychosocial science and medicine · 2025Article
- Adverse childhood experiences, inflammation, and depression: evidence of sex- and stressor specific effects in a nationally representative longitudinal sample of U.S. adolescents.Psychological medicine · 2025Article
- Estimating the associations between women's maltreatment in childhood and inflammatory biomarker levels prior to and during pregnancy.PloS one · 2025Article
- Early adversity and inflammation at midlife: the moderating role of internalizing psychopathology.Psychological medicine · 2024Article
- Neurobiology and systems biology of stress resilience.Physiological reviews · 2024Review
- The association between adverse childhood experiences and adult cardiac function in the UK Biobank.European heart journal. Imaging methods and practice · 2024Article
- Childhood maltreatment influences adult brain structure through its effects on immune, metabolic, and psychosocial factors.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2024Article
- Article
- Do trait-level emotion regulation strategies moderate associations between retrospective reports of childhood trauma and prospective changes in systemic inflammation?Stress and health : journal of the International Society for the Investigation of Stress · 2023Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
3 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
introductionChild maltreatment (CM) is associated with mental and physical health disorders in adulthood. Some studies have identified elevated markers of systemic inflammation in adult survivors of CM, and inflammation may mediate the association between CM and later health problems. However, there are methodological inconsistencies in studies of the association between CM and systemic inflammation and findings are conflicting. We performed a systematic review to examine the association of CM with systemic inflammation in adults.
methodsA pre-registered systematic review was performed following PRISMA guidelines. Medline, Embase, Scopus and PsychInfo were searched for studies of the association of CM with blood markers of inflammation in adults. Quality was assessed using the Crowe Critical Appraisal Tool. We had intended to perform a meta-analysis, but this was not possible due to variation in study design and reporting.
resultsForty-four articles met criteria for inclusion in the review. The most widely reported biomarkers were C-Reactive Protein (CRP) (n = 27), interleukin-6 (IL-6) (n = 24) and Tumour Necrosis Factor-alpha (TNF-a) (n = 17). Three studies were prospective (all relating to CRP) and the remainder were retrospective. 86% of studies were based in high income countries. In the prospective studies, CM was associated with elevated CRP in adulthood. Results of retrospective studies were conflicting. Methodological issues relating to the construct of CM, methods of analysis, and accounting for confounding or mediating variables (particularly Body Mass Index) may contribute to the uncertainty in the field.
conclusionsThere is some robust evidence from prospective studies that CM is associated with elevated CRP in adulthood. We have identified significant methodological inconsistencies in the literature and have proposed measures that future researchers could employ to improve consistency across studies. Further prospective, longitudinal, research using robust and comparable measures of CM with careful consideration of confounding and mediating variables is required to bring clarity to this field.
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