**5. Conclusions**

Our survey provides a population-based set of reference data upon which a strategy to address childhood adversity should be built and to which future data can be compared. Considering the fact that 1) the design and implementation of national surveys is beyond the resources of Hungarian academic institutes, 2) to our knowledge, no similar survey is being designed or planned by national institutions of public health or child protection, and 3) clinical samples have been known to overestimate the population prevalence of ACEs [39], marketing research methods provide a viable and cost-effective alternative to collect data on this important topic.

Even underestimated population-based data on childhood adversity are better than estimates based on clinical or chance samples or no data at all. Our survey provides the first data on ACEs in Central and Eastern Europe with the aim of advocating for the monitoring of ACEs in the future for which the use of marketing research methods seems to be appropriate. The European report on preventing child maltreatment states that community surveys using international standardized tools should be conducted regularly in order to identify the changes in prevalence rates and the potential risks and to have the opportunity to evaluate the implemented prevention programs [53]. However, until international standardized methods of measuring childhood adversity are developed, countries should aim at quantifying this important public health problem in a scientifically acceptable way for which less or more complex methods are available [64–66], and keep monitoring its tendency in time. If there is an issue in which national surveillance is more important than international comparability, it is childhood adversity, especially considering its long-term impact on the population's well-being.

**Author Contributions:** Conceptualization, A.U.N., I.K.S., and K.K.; Data curation, E.H.; Formal analysis, A.U.N. and K.K.; Funding acquisition, K.K.; Investigation, E.H.; Methodology, A.U.N., I.K.S., E.H., and K.K.; Project administration, K.K.; Resources, E.H.; Supervision, K.K.; Writing—original draft, A.U.N., I.K.S., and K.K.; Writing—review & editing, A.U.N., I.K.S., and K.K.

**Funding:** Karolina Kósa has been supported by the gran<sup>t</sup> GINOP-2.3.2-15 while preparing the paper.

**Conflicts of Interest:** The authors declare no conflict of interest. The funders had no role in the design of the study; in the collection, analyses, or interpretation of data; in the writing of the manuscript; or in the decision to publish the results.
