Giving Compass' Take:

• Stanford Social Innovation Review explores how scientists can help families, communities, educators and policymakers develop more effective responses to childhood mental illnesses by predicting vulnerability.

• What would be the next step in terms of philanthropic action? Could we develop programs based off the science of epigenetics and childhood trauma?

• Here's how trauma from adverse childhood experiences impact students.

Imagine if we could discover which children are most at risk of developing debilitating mental disorders — and even detect these illnesses before the appearance of a single symptom. Think how that knowledge could help parents, schools, nonprofits, and health services organizations design more appropriate, targeted interventions. Well, thanks to recent research breakthroughs in the field of epigenetics (external modifications to DNA that switch genes “on” and “off”), we are one step closer being able to do this.

Michael Meaney, professor of medicine in McGill University’s Douglas Mental Health Institute and the 2014 $1M Klaus J. Jacobs Research Prize recipient, is the driving force behind this research. His work is based on the knowledge that childhood adversity such as poverty or abuse — and even adversity experienced by a child’s ancestors — can affect how cells read genes, preventing children from developing healthy responses to stress and leaving them vulnerable to mental illnesses. These biological effects, Meaney has found, leave behind chemical markers that scientists can measure using a simple swab to collect saliva and a few cells from inside a person’s cheek.

Importantly, not all children who face adversity have the marker, says Anne Petersen, a behavioral scientist and research professor at the University of Michigan. So some children exposed to adversity are more vulnerable than others.

Discovering those who are most at risk is critical, argues Meaney. “We need to treat individual children and not conditions,” he says. “The point is to try to discern vulnerability at the level of the individual child and not to simply rely on the global conditions that predict increased risk.”

Read the full article about a new approach to childhood mental illness by Sarah Murray at Stanford Social Innovation Review.