Page Last Updated: May 14, 2026

Protective and Compensatory Experience (PACEs)🔗

Current PACEs (C-PACES) Retrospective PACEs <18 (R-PACES)
Table Namessed_bm_pacessed_cg_paces
Study VisitsV01V05
ConstructProtective Factors
Administration
  • Child-specific: No
  • Respondent: Parent on Self
  • Method: Self-administered, in-person or remote
Quality Control Data dashboard was monitored for variable missingness, possible coding errors, scoring verification, and data consistency.
Please review the Known Issues & Pending Updates page for updates that may affect data use.

Instrument Details🔗

Protective and Compensatory Experience (PACEs) is a 10-question scale with scores ranging between 0 and 10 assessing protective experiences, including relationships, feelings of connectedness, physical activity, engagement, environment, and opportunities. The versions assess protective experiences at two periods of time:

Current PACEs (C-PACEs) Protective experiences in the last year
Retrospective PACEs ( R-PACEs) <18 Protective experiences in childhood through age 18
HBCD Modification Details ▸

“Decline to answer” was added as a response option for all items. Instruction item language was also modified as follows:

  • Original text: On a scale of 1 to 5, fill the circle of the number that best describes how often each of the items occurred.
  • Revised text: Please select the response that best describes you.
Scoring Procedures ▸

Current PACEs (C-PACEs)
Item responses can range from 1 (Never) to 5 (Very Often). The summary score is calculated as the average of responses to the 10 items (sed_bm_paces_001 through sed_bm_paces_010), yielding scores from 1 to 5, with higher scores indicating more protective experiences.
The summary score is calculated only if at least 7 items are completed, in which case the score is the average of the completed items. If fewer than 7 items are completed (i.e. 4 or more items have responses of ‘Decline to answer’ or ‘I don’t know’), the summary score is set to missing.

Retrospective PACEs ( R-PACEs) <18
Item responses are coded as 0 (No) and 1 (Yes). Total scores are calculated as the sum of responses to instrument items 1 through 10 (sed_cg_paces_001 through sed_cg_paces_010). Therefore, total scores can range from 0 to 10 (higher scores indicating more protective experiences) if all items are answered. If items are skipped or missed, the score is calculated as the sum of all available responses.

References🔗

Morris, A. S., Hays-Grudo, J., Zapata, M. I., Treat, A., & Kerr, K. L. (2021). Adverse and protective childhood experiences and parenting attitudes: The role of cumulative protection in understanding resilience. Adversity and Resilience Science, 2(3), 181–192. https://doi.org/10.1007/s42844-021-00036-8

Morris, A. S., Treat, A., Hays-Grudo, J., Chesher, T., Williamson, A. C., & Mendez, J. (2018). Integrating research and theory on early relationships to guide intervention and prevention. In Building Early Social and Emotional Relationships with Infants and Toddlers (pp. 1–25). Springer International Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-03110-7_1