Goodman, Michael L.Baker, LarissaMaigallo, Agnes KarambuElliott, AleishaKeiser, PhilipRaimer-Goodman, Lauren2025-02-202025-02-202022Goodman, M. L., Baker, L., Maigallo, A. K., Elliott, A., Keiser, P., & Raimer-Goodman, L. (2022). Adverse childhood experiences, adult anxiety and social capital among women in rural Kenya. Journal of Anxiety Disorders, 91, 102614.https://repository.chuka.ac.ke/handle/123456789/16467Journal ArticleHundreds of millions of people suffer anxiety disorders globally, demonstrating need for scalable and effective interventions. Adverse childhood experiences contribute to this mental health burden. The stress-buffering hypothesis, which posits social factors moderate prior adversity and subsequent mental health outcomes, provides one theoretical avenue to consider observations that group-based microfinance programs improve social capital. We investigate associations between adverse childhood experiences, generalized anxiety among adults and social capital associated with participation in a group-based microfinance program in rural Kenya. Adult participants (n=400 women) responded to standardized measures of childhood adversity in June 2018, group-affiliated social capital and generalized anxiety in June 2019. Cumulative adverse childhood experiences predicted higher anxiety, which was statistically moderated by the presence of group- affiliated interpersonal trust. This study is the first to find social capital associated with participation in a group-based microfinance program statistically moderates expected associations between adverse childhood experiences and adult generalized anxiety. Future study should be conducted using a cluster- randomized control design to further assess the potential of this intervention method to ameliorate associations between past adversity and current mental health.engeneralized anxietySub-Saharan AfricaAdverse Childhood Experiencesbuffering hypothesisArticle