Research Review: Assessment of early‐life adversity and trauma – cumulative risk and dimensional approaches

In this research review, we present approaches and recommendations for assessing early‐life adversity and childhood trauma aligned with two leading conceptual models of adversity: cumulative risk and dimensional models. We summarize the measurement implications of each conceptual model and common approaches for assessing early‐life adversity in studies utilizing each of these models. We consider other critical components in the assessment of early‐life adversity and trauma, including retrospective and prospective reporting, objective and subjective measurement, and caregiver and child reporting. Finally, we briefly summarize the existing interview and questionnaire measures that are widely used to assess early‐life adversity and trauma using both cumulative risk and dimensional approaches. This work suggests that there is greater heterogeneity in measures used to assess the dimensional model relative to those used to assess the cumulative risk model, which allows for more flexibility in the assessment of early‐life adversity. In addition, we observed that more detailed measures were available to assess experiences of threat compared to experiences of deprivation. Measures that assess adversity experiences in terms of frequency and severity across multiple dimensions of experience within a single measure are needed to facilitate consistent and reliable assessment of early‐life adversity and trauma, particularly when applying dimensional models.