Journal Articles
Resources
Parenting Risk and Protective Factors in the Development of Conduct Problems in Seven Countries
This study advances the understanding of risk and protective factors in trajectories of conduct problems in adolescence in seven countries that differ widely on a number of sociodemographic factors as well as norms related to adolescent behavior.
Reports
Resources
Megatrends Report on Urbanization and Migration in the Context of Family
This report reviews and analyzes sources published from 2019 to 2024 to investigate the complex dynamics of the intersecting trends of urbanization, migration, and family. Six critical areas in need of policy recommendations have been identified: family-friendly policies, gender-responsive and child-sensitive legislation, affordable housing and inclusive infrastructure, comprehensive urban planning, sustainable urban growth through effective family planning,
and comprehensive healthcare services for immigrants.
Reports
Resources
Global Demographic Trends and Their Impact on Children, Families, and Policy
This report describes six major demographic trends: declining fertility, changing partnering patterns, reductions in early childhood and maternal mortality, a burgeoning youth population, changes in child marriage rates, and a growing aging population.
Journal Articles
Resources
Subtypes of Childhood Social Withdrawal and Adult Relationship and Parenting Outcomes
This study suggests socially withdrawn children in the United States fare similarly to non-withdrawn peers in adulthood in their romantic relationships and parenting, but a subgroup of active-isolate children may be at risk of not entering adult relationships.
Journal Articles
Resources
Fast Track Intervention Effects and Mechanisms of Action Through Established Adulthood
Our analyses showed that Fast Track’s improvements to interpersonal and intrapersonal skills in childhood served as catalysts for better life outcomes at age 31. Our findings inform understanding of how a childhood preventive intervention can improve adjustment and behaviors into established adulthood.
Journal Articles
Resources
Attachment Security, Environmental Adversity, and Fast Life History Behavioral Profiles in Human Adolescents
The current study seeks to explore caregiver–child attachment as an internal mental state in the calibration and modulation of life history strategies.
Journal Articles
Resources
Using Critical Race Mixed Methodology to Explore African American College Students’ Experiences with Racial Microaggressions
This article advances the use of mixed methods in higher education research to better understand the racialized experiences of African American college students and demonstrate how Critical Race Mixed Methodology can be used to integrate quantitative and qualitative findings.
Journal Articles
Resources
My Friends Made Me Do It: Peer Influences and Different Types of Vaping in Adolescence
Vaping is one of the most common forms of substance use among adolescents. Social influences play a key role in the decision to use substances and frequency of use during adolescence, and vaping is no exception. Using a sample of 891 adolescents, we explored whether the frequency of vaping nicotine and the frequency of vaping marijuana at age 17 were related to concurrent reports of resistance to peer influence, perceptions of friends vaping, and perceptions of classmates vaping.
Books
Resources
Amplifying Youth Voices through Critical Literacy and Positive Youth Development: The Potential of University-Community Partnerships
This book explores the transformative power of critical literacy in fostering youth engagement through university-community partnerships. It is based on a six-year study by The Literacy and Community Initiative (LCI) at North Carolina State University.
Journal Articles
Resources
Adolescent Boys’ Aggressive Responses to Perceived Threats to Their Gender Typicality
When adult men are made to feel gender-atypical, they often lash out with aggression, particularly when they are pressured (vs. autonomously motivated) to be gender-typical. This article examines the development of this phenomenon.
Research Brief
Resources
Adolescent Life Disruption Due to COVID-19
This brief outlines the findings from “How adolescents’ lives were disrupted over the course of the COVID-19 pandemic: A longitudinal investigation in 12 cultural groups in 9 nations from March 2020 to July 2022” in the journal Development and Psychopathology. The authors investigate the extent to which adolescents’ lives were disrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as the factors that caused these disruptions.
Journal Articles
Resources
Taking John Schulenberg’s “Long View” on Successful Transitions to Adulthood: Associations with Adult Substance Use
Can positive transitions into young adulthood at age 25 prevent problematic substance use at age 31, even in the context of childhood adverse family environments, conduct problems, and adolescent substance use? The authors lean on John Schulenberg’s developmental framework to examine this question.
Journal Articles
Resources
Longitudinal Associations Between Positive Parenting and Youths’ Engagement in Sexting Behaviors: The Mediating Role of Filial Self-Efficacy Beliefs
Youths who enter emerging adulthood with a background of familial relations grounded in positive parent-child interactions are better equipped to cope with transitional stressors, to voice effectively their opinions with parents, and to resist engaging in risky activities. The study reveals filial self-efficacy beliefs as central to the benefits conveyed to teens by parents in reducing their sexting behaviors.
Journal Articles
Resources
Bidirectional Longitudinal Associations Between Parental Self-Efficacy and Child Rule-Breaking Behaviours: A Random-Intercept Cross-Lagged Panel Study
Previous research shown that parental self-efficacy plays a protective role for children’s rule-breaking behaviours (i.e., parent-driven process), but rule-breaking also can reduce parents’ parental self-efficacy over-time (i.e., child-driven process). This study delves into the bidirectional longitudianl associations between parental self-efficacy and children’s rule-breaking behaviors.
Journal Articles
Resources
The Role of Family Relationships on Adolescents’ Development and Adjustment During the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Systematic Review
This systematic review examined two research questions with 189 articles published from 2020-2022: (1) How has the COVID-19 pandemic impacted families with adolescents, including broader family functioning, family relationship qualities, and parenting? and (2) How has the pandemic or pandemic-related stressors interacted with family functioning, family relationships, and parenting of adolescents to impact adolescent well-being and adjustment?
Journal Articles
Resources
The Impact of COVID-19 on the Peer Relationships of Adolescents Around the World: A Rapid Systematic Review
The main objective of this rapid systematic review was to examine how the COVID-19 pandemic impacted peer relationships for adolescents (10-25 years of age) around the globe.
Journal Articles
Resources
Impulsivity Profiles Across Five Harmonized Longitudinal Childhood Preventive Interventions and Associations with Adult Outcomes
Overall, our study helps to inform understanding of the developmental course and
prognosis of impulsivity, as well as adding to collaborative efforts linking data across multiple studies to better inform understanding of
developmental processes.
Journal Articles
Resources
Parents’ Learning Support and School Attitudes in Relation to Adolescent Academic Identity and School Performance in Nine Countries
This study investigated relations among parental education, parents’ attitudes toward their adolescents’ school, parental support for learning at home, and adolescents’ academic identity and school performance over time and in different national contexts.
Journal Articles
Resources
Patterns of Singlehood, Cohabitation, and Marriage in Early Adulthood in Relation to Well-Being in Established Adulthood
In a cohort followed from late adolescence until established adulthood, this study examined how singlehood, cohabitation, and marriage at different ages are related to well-being at age 34.
Journal Articles
Resources
Adolescents’ Relationships with Parents and Romantic Partners in Eight Countries
This study examines how parent-adolescent conflicts, attachment, positive parenting, and communication are related to adolescents’ romantic relationship quality, satisfaction, conflicts, and management. Results stress the relevance of parent-adolescent conflicts and attachment as factors connected to how adolescents experience romantic relationships.
Research Project
Megatrends and the Family
This project will produce research and policy reports on four megatrends identified by the United Nations related to families and (1) climate change, (2) technology, (3) migration and urbanization, and (4) demographic trends.
Journal Articles
Resources
How Adolescents’ Lives were Disrupted Over the Course of the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Longitudinal Investigation in 12 Cultural Groups in 9 Nations from March 2020 to July 2022
To answer these questions about how much adolescents’ lives were disrupted throughout the COVID-19 pandemic or what risk factors predicted such disruption 1,080 adolescents in 9 nations were surveyed 5 times from March 2020 to July 2022, with findings presented in this article. Collectively, the findings provide new insights that policymakers can use to prevent the disruption of adolescents’ lives in future pandemics.
Journal Articles
Resources
Beyond Parental Wealth: Grandparental Wealth and the Transition to Adulthood
This study considers the multigenerational consequences of wealth transmission for the transition to young adulthood.
Journal Articles
Resources
The Developmental Trends of Parental Self-Efficacy and Adolescents’ Rule-Breaking Behaviors in the Italian Context: A 7-Wave Latent Growth Curve Study
Parental self-efficacy (PSE) captures parents’ beliefs in their ability to perform the parenting role successfully and to handle pivotal issues of specific developmental periods. This study examined the developmental trends of PSE among Italian mothers and fathers over seven waves as well as the longitudinal associations between PSE and rule-breaking behaviors during late adolescence.
Journal Articles
Resources
Developmental Trajectories of Parental Self-Efficacy as Children Transition to Adolescence in Nine Countries: Latent Growth Curve Analyses
This study examined parental self-efficacy among mothers and fathers over 3.5 years during children’s transition into adolescence, and whether the level and developmental trajectory of parental self-efficacy varied by cultural group. Data were drawn from three waves of the Parenting Across Cultures (PAC) project, a large-scale longitudinal, cross-cultural study, across nine countries (12 ethnic/cultural groups). Results suggest that declines in parental self-efficacy documented in previous research are culturally influenced.
Journal Articles
Resources
Development of Primal World Beliefs
Primal world beliefs (“primals”) capture individuals’ basic understanding of what sort of world this is. How do children develop beliefs about the nature of the world?
Research Project
Risk and Resilience in Ukraine: Individual, Family, and Community Predictors of Adolescent and Young Adult Adjustment
This research project will collect data from youth enrolled in universities across Ukraine during the winter of 2023. Data will include changes in adjustment, wellbeing, and optimism, along with substance use. Data will provide insights into how best to support the mental health of young people during a global crisis.
Journal Articles
Resources
Re-Envisioning the Culture of Undergraduate Biology Education to Foster Black Student Success: A Clarion Call
This paper presents an argument for why there is a need to re-envision the underlying culture of undergraduate biology education to ensure the success, retention, and matriculation of Black students.
Journal Articles
Resources
Adolescents’ Perceived Changes in Internalizing Symptoms during the COVID-19 Pandemic: The Role of Father Internalizing Symptoms and Parent Support in Germany and Slovakia
This study examined the relation between adolescents’ perceived changes in internalizing symptoms during the COVID-19 pandemic and four different family and peer relationships in Germany and Slovakia. In both countries, we found that higher levels of father internalizing symptoms exacerbated the relation between pandemic disruption and increases in pandemic-related adolescent internalizing symptoms. Similarly, parental support buffered the relation between adolescent perceptions of COVID-19 disruption and increases in the adolescents’ internalizing symptoms.
Research Project
Advancing Equity in Adolescent Health through Evidence-Based Teen Pregnancy Prevention Programs and Services
This project expands reach, builds capacity, and scales up evidence-based programs offering positive youth development and sexuality education to address health disparities in the most vulnerable areas across rural Eastern North Carolina.
Journal Articles
Resources
Intraindividual Variability in Parental Acceptance-Rejection Predicts Externalizing and Internalizing Symptoms Across Childhood/Adolescence in Nine Countries.
Parenting that is high in rejection and low in acceptance is associated with higher levels of internalizing and externalizing problems in children and adolescents. Findings show that more variability over time in experiences of parental acceptance/rejection predicts internalizing and externalizing symptoms as children transition into adolescence, and this effect is present across multiple diverse samples.
Journal Articles
Resources
Intergenerational Effects of a Family Cash Transfer on the Home Environment
A family cash transfer in childhood that had long-term effects on individual functioning did not impact the home environment of participants who became parents. Rather, parents in both groups were providing home environments generally conducive to their children’s growth and development.
Journal Articles
Resources
Co-Development of Internalizing Symptoms and Regulatory Emotional Self-Efficacy in Adolescence: Time-Varying Effects of COVID-19-Related Stress and Social Support
Using data from surveys of Italian adolescents, researchers looked at the pattern of adolescent coping from just before the pandemic started and then for two more years. As adolescents reported feeling more stress about the pandemic, they reported more symptoms of anxiety and depression, and reported feeling less capable of coping with negative emotions. The findings are important for informing interventions to strengthen coping strategies for adolescents during stressful community-wide events.
Journal Articles
Resources
Intra‐ and Interpersonal Factors and Adolescent Wellbeing During COVID‐19 in Three Countries
COVID-19 has altered adolescents’ opportunities for developing and strengthening interpersonal skills and proficiencies. Using data from adolescents in Italy, the United States, and the United Kingdom, we examined the relation between internalizing symptoms assessed pre-pandemic or when pandemic-related restrictions were lifted and associated internalizing symptoms during a subsequent restrictive pandemic period.
Journal Articles
Resources
Emotion-Related Self-Regulation Profiles in Early Adolescence: A Cross-National Study
Researchers studying predictors of adolescents’ adjustment have increasingly focused on temperamental characteristics of self-regulation (e.g., effortful control – EC) and negative emotionality (NE). This study contributed to understanding how different configurations of specific dimensions of NE and EC were associated with aggressive and prosocial behaviors and if these associations differed across genders and three different countries, two of which have seldom been examined.
Journal Articles
Kindergarten Conduct Problems are Associated with Monetized Outcomes in Adolescence and Adulthood
Researchers examined whether kindergarten conduct problems among mostly population-representative samples of children were associated with increased criminal and related costs across adolescence and adulthood, as well as government and medical services costs in adulthood.
Research Project
STEPS: Study of Teen Experiences that Promote Success
This project aims to advance research on the relationship between economic well-being, wealth, adolescent functioning and mental health.
Journal Articles
Resources
Predicting Adolescent Mental Health Outcomes Across Cultures: A Machine Learning Approach
This study demonstrates how data- and theory-driven methods can be integrated to identify the most important preadolescent risk factors in predicting adolescent mental health.
Journal Articles
Day-to-day Variation in Adolescent Food Insecurity
Food insecurity among adolescents is not static but varies from day to day. This daily variation is greater for economically disadvantaged youth.
Parenting, Adolescent Sensation Seeking, and Subsequent Substance Use: Moderation by Adolescent Temperament
This study advances understanding of the developmental paths between the contextual and individual factors critical for adolescent substance use across a wide range of cultural contexts.
Resources
Videos
Co-Regulation: What It Is and Why it Matters
Short video on co-regulation, the interactive process by which caring adults (1) provide warm supportive relationships, (2) promote self-regulation through coaching, modeling, and feedback, and (3) structure supportive environments.
Book Chapter
An International Perspective on Parenting and Family Influences on Adolescents and Young Adults
In the APA Handbook of Adolescent and Young Adult Development, Jen Lansford and co-authors discuss how parents and their adolescent and young adult offspring observe and participate in parent–offspring interactions in their communities and hold expectations about their own relationships derived in part from culturally shaped expectations.
Reports
Plea Tracking in the Durham County District Attorney’s Office
The purpose of this report is to highlight the insights from our first year that we can glean from plea tracking, describe the cases managed in the Durham Office, and draw attention to any emerging patterns in case characteristics and prosecutorial discretion.
Journal Articles
State-Level Legal and Sociodemographic Correlates of Child Marriage Rates in the United States
Although there is a breadth of knowledge on child marriage in many low- and middle-income countries, little research and policy discussion exists surrounding child marriage within the United States. Using administrative data from several sources, this study examines how a range of different state-level variables, including political lean, academic performance, median household income, religiosity, population density, minimum age requirements and other state laws, such as parental and judicial consent, and median distance to an abortion clinic are related to variation in child marriage rates across states.
Journal Articles
Predicting Child Aggression: The Role of Parent and Child Endorsement of Reactive Aggression Across 13 Cultural Groups in 9 Nations
Parent and child endorsement of reactive aggression both predict the emergence of child aggression, but they are rarely studied together and in longitudinal contexts. The present study does so by examining the unique predictive effects of parent and child endorsement of reactive aggression at age 8 on child aggression at age 9 in 1456 children from 13 cultural groups in 9 nations.
Journal Articles
Gun violence among young adults with a juvenile crime record in North Carolina: Implications for firearm restrictions based on age and risk
The prevalence of arrests for crimes involving guns among young adults in North Carolina with a gun-disqualifying felony record acquired before age 18 suggests that the federal gun prohibitor conferred by a felony record is not highly effective as currently implemented in this population. From a risk-based perspective, these restrictions appear to be justified; better implementation and enforcement may improve their effectiveness.
Journal Articles
Predictors of Problematic Adult Alcohol, Cannabis, and Other Substance Use: A Longitudinal Study of Two Samples
This study examined whether a key set of adolescent and early adulthood risk factors predicts problematic alcohol, cannabis, and other substance use in established adulthood. Externalizing behaviors and prior substance use in early adulthood were consistent predictors of problematic alcohol and cannabis misuse in established adulthood across samples.
Research Project
Childhood, Adolescence, and Covid-Related Risk and Protective Factors in the Development of Adjustment in Early Adulthood Across Cultures
Building on the ongoing Parenting Across Cultures longitudinal study that began in 2008, this project will continue to follow participants in their early to mid-twenties.
Research Project
The Impact of Mental Health Therapy on Job Creation and Business Outcomes in Youth and Female-Led Enterprises
This study will evaluate the impact of cognitive behavior therapy delivered through virtual reality on job creation and business outcomes in youth and female-led enterprises in Nigeria via improvements in depression, stress, and anxiety.
Journal Articles
Intergenerational effects of the Fast Track intervention on the home environment: A randomized control trial
This study examined whether the childhood intervention program called Fast Track improves family life into the second generation.
Research Project
Childhood, Adolescence, and Covid-Related Risk and Protective Factors in the Development of Adjustment in Early Adulthood Across Cultures
Project Description Compared to adolescents or adults in mid-life, young adults (aged 22-26) are at higher risk of death and disease from a variety of causes, most of which are preventable, including mental health problems, substance use, sexually transmitted infections, homicides, and motor vehicle accidents. Mental health and substance use disorders alone account for approximately…
Research Project
Child and Adolescent Predictors of Young Adults’ and Their Parents’ Primals in Nine Countries
This study provides an unprecedented opportunity to understand whether and how primals in early adulthood are predicted by childhood and adolescent experiences and how parents’ primals are related to their young adult children’s primals in the most diverse long-term longitudinal study ever conducted.
Journal Articles
Adult Criminal Outcomes of Juvenile Justice Involvement.
Juvenile justice involvement was associated with increased risk of adult criminality, with residential services associated with highest risk. Juvenile justice involvement may catalyze rather than deter from adult offending.
Research Project
Developing and Evaluating Progressive Prosecution in Durham, NC
The purpose of this project is to support the development and evaluation of new evidence-based plea bargaining policies and practices in the Durham District Attorney’s Office.
Journal Articles
The Intergenerational Transmission of Maladaptive Parenting and its Impact on Child Mental Health: Examining Cross-Cultural Mediating Pathways and Moderating Protective Factors
Using a sample of 1338 families from 12 cultural groups in 9 nations, we examined whether retrospectively remembered Generation 1 (G1) parent rejecting behaviors were passed to Generation 2 (G2 parents), whether such intergenerational transmission led to higher Generation 3 (G3 child) externalizing and internalizing behavior at age 13, and whether such intergenerational transmission could be interrupted by parent participation in parenting programs or family income increases of > 5%.
Journal Articles
Pre-Pandemic Psychological and Behavioral Predictors of Responses to the COVID-19 Pandemic in Nine Countries
Across countries, adolescents’ internalizing problems pre-pandemic predicted increased internalizing during the pandemic, and poorer well-being pre-pandemic predicted increased externalizing and substance use during the pandemic.
Journal Articles
Culture and Social Change in Mothers’ and Fathers’ Individualism, Collectivism and Parenting Attitudes
Historically, individualism vs. collectivism has been a main organizing framework for understanding cultural differences in family life. This study examines parents in nine countries to understand their individualism, collectivism and parenting attitudes. They found parenting attitudes are predicted by a range of sociodemographic factors.
Research Project
Great Smoky Mountains Study of Rural Aging
Project to augment the longitudinal Great Smoky Mountains Study (GSMS) to create a national data resource, the Great Smoky Mountains Study of Rural Aging (GSMS-RA), for the study of early determinants of the aging experience in a rural context. The GSMS began collecting data on children, now participants are entering their 40s.
Research Project
Parenting Across Cultures: COVID-19
This project builds on the ongoing Parenting Across Cultures (PAC) longitudinal study that began in 2008 with recruitment of a sample of 1,417 8-year-old children and their mothers and fathers from nine countries. In 2020, COVID-19-related questions were added to assess behavioral and emotional functioning in relation to the rapidly-evolving situation in each country’s response to the pandemic.
Journal Articles
Impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on substance use among adults without children, parents, and adolescents
Impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on alcohol and illicit substance use among adults without children, parents, and adolescents was investigated through two studies with five samples from independent ongoing U.S. longitudinal studies.
Research Project
Dimensions of Child Adversity and Health Risk Behaviors in Young Adulthood
The objectives of this study are to understand mechanisms in the global context through which exposure to different types of adverse experiences in childhood increases risk of adverse behavioral and psychosocial outcomes into early adulthood.
Journal Articles
Resources
Development of individuals’ own and perceptions of peers’ substance use from early adolescence to adulthood
This study evaluated how individuals’ own substance use and their perception of peers’ substance use predict each other across development from early adolescence to middle adulthood.
Research Project
Intergenerational Persistence of Treatment Effects
Many childhood interventions target low-income and high-risk children, with evidence that some early interventions improve adult health and wellbeing. This study asks whether children who benefit from early interventions grow up to become better parents and, subsequently, have children who experience fewer health problems, educational challenges, and emotional problems.
Research Project
Childhood Risk Factors and Young Adult Competence
Using the most diverse, prospectively studied, multi-national sample to date, this study will generate empirical findings to develop a model of child- and family-level mediators and culture-level moderators of the role of childhood risk factors and young adult competence and maladaptation. Cross-cultural comparisons will inform domestic models of young adult maladaptation.
Research Project
Child Development Project- Optimizing Prevention of Costly Adult Outcomes
Project Description This longitudinal study is a collaboration among Auburn University, Indiana University, and Duke University that investigates children’s social development and adjustment by following 585 children from two cohorts recruited in consecutive years, 1987 and 1988, from Nashville, Tenn.; Knoxville, Tenn.; and Bloomington, Ind. The children were recruited the year before they entered kindergarten; the…
Research Project
Brain Imaging the Effects of High Sensation Value Anti-Drug PSAs
Project Description The objective of this research was to explore the use of state-of-the-science brain imaging and analysis procedures in evaluating the effectiveness of Public Service Announcements (PSAs) used in the National Youth Anti-Drug Media Campaign. This objective was accomplished by pursuing three specific aims: 1) identifying and cataloging features of youth-focused PSAs featured in…
Research Project
How Do State Social Assistance Policies and Practices Impact Utilization and Outcomes Among Hispanic Low-Income Youth?
Project Description Hispanic youth represent a growing proportion of America’s future workforce. The vast majority are U.S.-born and raised in income-poor households, yet little is understood about the influence of social and income security policy on their well-being. Despite eligibility, Hispanic families are less likely to receive income assistance than their peers. Resulting differences in…
Research Project
Cross-Cultural Perspectives on Adolescent Well-Being
Project Description There is very limited cross-cultural evidence on the relationship among parenting practices, children’s emotions, children’s social behaviors, and children’s general well-being. I have teamed up with a young scholar, Dr. Laura DiGuinta, in Italy to examine how culture influences these factors. We collected data from 460 11- to 12-year-old children and their parents…
Research Project
The Intergeneration Effects of Criminal Justice Policies on Substance Use Crimes
Project Description The harms of substance use and the specific public policies implemented for combating substance use are associated with societal costs estimated at over $500 billion annually in the U.S. alone. Prevailing debates on public policies for curbing substance use focus on the relative merits of employing a public health approach- awareness, prevention, and…
Research Project
Decision-Making in Everyday Life
In collaboration with Laurence Steinberg of Temple University and grant funding from the Jacobs Foundation, Decision-Making in Everyday Life was an assessment of judgment, decision-making, and psychosocial development from over 350 participants in Durham and Winston-Salem, North Carolina. The measures used were also being administered in China, Colombia, Cyprus, India, Italy, Jordan, Kenya, the Philippines, Sweden, and Thailand. The assessment included questions about several aspects of development that affect the choices young people make, including choices to engage in risky and antisocial behavior. These aspects of development included impulsivity, foresight, sensation-seeking, planning, and reward salience.
Research Project
Week in the Life Study
Project Description The Week in the Life Study used mobile touchscreen devices to understand how adolescents’ daily experiences affect their mental and physical well-being in everyday life. Project Goals In doing so, the study aimed to answer the following questions: What are the most frequently experienced stressors (negative events) and uplifts (positive events) in adolescents’…
Research Project
Intergenerational Transmission of Resilience to ACEs
Project Description Adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) can have devastating effects on health and behavior. But many children avoid such dire outcomes, even thrive, despite exposures to multiple ACEs. It is not known, however, whether this individual resilience will be sustained into adulthood and transmitted to the next generation. This project brings together a longitudinal, community…
Research Project
Optimizing Prevention of Costly Adult Outcomes
Project Description Although prevention scientists have documented effective interventions to prevent adult substance abuse, antisocial behavior, and risky sexual behavior, these interventions have not been applied to optimize return on investment and thus have not yet been fully embraced by communities. We propose mapping the relations between early risk profiles (and preventive intervention) and adult…
Research Project
Safe Schools/Healthy Students Program
Project Description The Safe Schools/Healthy Students program strove to reduce school violence and promote students’ healthy development. The Center’s work involved: Researching funding opportunities Assistance to secure $7.5M in federal funds to reduce school violence and promote student health Staff training and supervision to implement evidence-based programs to reduce school violence Evaluating programs in accordance…
Research Project
Truancy Prevention Project
Project Description Chronic truancy is prevalent among school children who are at risk. Truancy in primary school is predictive of truancy in later years, school dropout, and the closely associated problems of adolescence, including substance abuse and delinquency. Hence there is reason to believe that an effective program of truancy reduction in the primary years…
Research Project
Promoting Self-Regulation to Enhance Social, Behavioral, and Academic Adjustment in Middle School
Project Description The Be CALM (Cool, Attentive, Logical, and Mature) intervention is guided by a theory of change that intentionally targets self-regulatory processes in need of support and development during early adolescence: immature cognitive controls, increased emotionality and stress reactivity, and responsivity to peers. This approach, which is delivered by teachers in health education classes…
Research Project
College Students’ Non-Medical Use and Misuse of ADHD Meds
Project Description This four-year study examined the prevalence, correlates, causes and consequences of the misuse and abuse of ADHD medications by college students at Duke University and The University of North Carolina at Greensboro. The main reason that students reported using ADHD medication was to enhance their academic performance, primarily by improving their ability to…
Research Project
Marriage and Parenthood in the Lives of Adolescents and Young Adults
Project Description This study examined a socio-cultural conception of marriage and childbearing by combining qualitative and quantitative analyses to understand the roles of marriage and fertility in the lives of adolescents and young adults. Project Goals To understand socio-cultural conceptions of marriage and childbearing. Results indicated that marriage and fertility are regarded as two separate…
Research Project
America’s Promise Evaluation Project
Project Description This project evaluates the first phase of America’s Promise Alliance’s new nationwide effort to deliver five ‘promises’ to 15 million young people between 2008 and 2012. The first phase focuses on improving high school graduation rates through a series of school dropout summits. The Alliance has planned a series of 50 state-level and…
Research Project
Durham Family Initiative
Project Description The Durham Family Initiative was a 12-year collaboration with the Center for Child and Family Health supported by the The Duke Endowment to improve family well-being and reduce child maltreatment in Durham County. The endeavor began by providing community-based efforts to help families support their children’s health, growth and development in stressed neighborhoods…
Research Project
Scientific Meetings for Advancing Economic Analyses of Substance Abuse Prevention
Project Description Key experts will be brought together to advance the economic analysis of substance abuse prevention. Project Aims Aims: cultivate a sustainable interdisciplinary research team identify analytic approaches for strengthening cost and benefit estimates, and provide guidance around employing benefit-cost analyses to build efficient prevention efforts. Project Results
Research Project
Beyond Test Scores: Schooling and Life-Course Outcomes in Early Adulthood
Project Description A team of social policy researchers from the Center for Child and Family Policy and the Sanford School of Public Policy examined the connection between test scores and important outcomes that signaled or influenced the accumulation of human capital. The research had policy implications for high school graduation and post-secondary education rates, labor…
Research Project
Monitoring Substance Abuse in Durham County
Project Description Center researchers have prepared three editions of the Survey of Substance Use and Abuse in Durham County, releasing the most recent in spring 2013, sponsored by Durham Together for Resilient Youth (TRY). The goal of creating the report was to better understand the dynamics of the substance abuse problem in the Durham community….
Research Project
Epigenetic Mediation of Early Environmental Influences on Adolescent Neurobehavioral Development
Project Description Although most children navigate the challenges of puberty and settle into adolescence without major problems, about 20% will experience at least one mental health disorder during their teenage years. Why do some adolescents struggle so much more than others? Decades of research in developmental science have demonstrated the mutual influence of genotype and…
Research Project
Adolescent Adjustment: An Integrative Examination of Parenting, Emotion Regulation, and Social Information Processing
Project Description There is very limited cross-cultural evidence on the relationship among parenting practices, children’s emotions, children’s social behaviors, and children’s general well-being. I have teamed up with a young scholar, Dr. Laura DiGuinta, in Italy to examine how culture influences these factors. We collected data from 460 11- to 12-year-old children and their parents…
Research Project
Collaborative Research: Leveraging Matched Administrative Datasets to Improve Educational Practice and Long Run Outcomes: Toward Building a National Interdisciplinary Network
Project Description The U.S. Government has made the collection of large-scale individual-level longitudinal data for students in kindergarten through twelfth grade and beyond a major national priority, and has to date invested $500 million (with another $100 million slated for awards during fiscal year 2012) in helping states to develop the capacity to collect, maintain,…
Research Project
Development and Prevention of Substance Abuse Problems
Project Description This project aims to discern how early conduct disorder leads to substance-use problems; to understand processes of resilience to substance use development among conduct problem children; and to test the efficacy of a conduct disorder prevention program in preventing substance use problems in young adulthood. Project Aims To describe comorbidity, growth, and cross-temporal…
Research Project
Monitoring Substance Use Indicators for North Carolina Adolescents
Project Description This project built a Web-based data reporting system for describing trends in adolescent substance abuse indicators in North Carolina. The system was populated with data that is publicly available. This database included indicators of substance use from a large range of sources, including self-reported measures from the Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance Survey and…
Research Project
GREAT Schools and Families Project – Evaluation Research Study in Area of Aggression/Interpersonal Youth
Project Description The GREAT Schools and Families Project – completed in 2007 – was a multi-site program to develop and evaluate violence prevention programs for middle school students. Researchers from Virginia Commonwealth University, the University of Illinois-Chicago, and the University of Georgia-Athens collaborated on this project. The project was funded by the National Centers for…
Research Project
Fast Track Data Center
Project Description The Duke University Fast Track Data Center provides all data files that are necessary to complete analyses to evaluate the impact of the Fast Track preventive intervention program, the factors that account for positive impact of the program, and processes in the development of healthy and problematic outcomes in high-risk youth. The study…
Research Project
Macro-to-Micro Contextual Triggers of Early Adolescent Substance Exposure
Project Description What features of adolescents’ neighborhoods, families, and peer groups trigger early substance use? How can contextual triggers of early substance use be targeted to promote healthy development during the transition to middle school? Exposure to alcohol and drugs during early adolescence carries significant costs to adolescents’ future lives. As a result,parents, teachers, and…
Research Project
Research on High School Reform: Study of the Efficacy of North Carolina’s Learn and Earn Early College High School Model
Project Description This project established and maintained databases for conducting study on high school reform and integrates the data with the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction. Project Goals The goal of this project is to investigate the Early College High School model and its impact on students. Project Findings
Research Project
Justice and Mental Health Collaboration Project
Project Description The Justice and Mental Health Collaboration was an outreach program designed to provide intensive follow-up to police service calls involving persons with mental health issues and to divert them into community-based treatment. The Center for Child and Family Policy contracted with the Durham Police Department to provide technical assistance, data analysis and development…
Research Project
Effects of Cognitive Control Training among Adolescent Offenders
Project Description This project examined how cognitive control skills such as attention, working memory, and response inhibition relate to social-information processing skills and serious adolescent conduct problems (e.g., substance use and offenses). It also assessed the impact of computerized cognitive enhancement training on cognitive control and social information processing skills. Project Goals The primary goal…
Research Project
The Role of Wealth in the Transition to Young Adulthood for Minority Youth
Project Description This project represents the first efforts to ascertain the extent and potential repercussions of wealth and net worth poverty among minority youth. Project Goals 1. Analyze racial and ethnic disparities in wealth among households with children, and identify potential mechanisms that explain such disparities.2. Estimate levels and trends in net worth poverty for…
Research Project
Adolescent Drug Use: Development, Prevention, and Policy
Project Description This Senior Scientist Award supported a portion of the principal investigator’s salary. Dr. Dodge’s research contributed to the societal prevention of serious problem outcomes, including substance abuse, behaviors that place one at risk for HIV/AIDS, and child abuse, in two related populations: multi-problem adolescents and young high-risk mothers. Project Aims The specific aims…
Research Project
Natural History of ADHD in a Population-based Sample
Project Description This five-year project examined adolescent outcomes of a population-based sample of individuals who had been diagnosed with ADHD five to six years earlier. This study represented the largest follow-up of a community-based sample of children with ADHD that has ever been conducted. Project Goals Examine long-term academic and behavioral outcomes for children with…
Research Project
The Effects of Local Job Destruction on Youth Mobility
Project Description We combined the quasi-experimental data we have constructed on mass job losses by month in every county in North Carolina and by quarter in every state in the US (Ananat, Gassman-Pines, and Gibson-Davis 2013) with local area statistics on mobility by cohort (Chetty, Hendren, Kline, Saez, and Turner 2014) to identify how changing local…
Research Project
Child Mental Health Initiative (BECOMING)
Project Description Center researchers Nicole Lawrence, Joel Rosch, Liz Snyder, and Anne-Marie Iselin helped Alliance Behavioral Healthcare secure a six-year $5.4 million federal grant from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA). This grant builds upon the existing infrastructure of Durham’s child and adult System of Care by targeting transition-age youth (16-21) with…
Research Project
Preliminary Evaluation of the National STEM Career Platform
Project Description This project provided a preliminary evaluation of the National STEM Career Platform, a web-based system for helping high school students identify STEM careers that match their interests and to become aware of the educational and career opportunities that are available to them. Researchers in the Center for Child and Family Policy created and…
Research Project
Transdisciplinary Prevention Research Center (TPRC)
Project Description The goal of the P30 Duke Transdisciplinary Prevention Research Center (TPRC) was to facilitate the translation of basic-science knowledge about regulatory processes and peer influences into innovative research efforts to prevent substance use and related problems in adolescents. As stipulated by the National Institutes of Health, a P30 Center does not directly conduct…
Research Project
Durham Together for Resilient Youth (TRY)
Project Description Substance use is a dynamic problem that impacts a community in a multitude of ways. In an effort to understand how substance use affects Durham, this project assembled information from a variety of local health and social service agencies. The report prepared by Center researchers documented information on geospatial and time trends, on…
Research Project
Economic and Social Determinants of the Educational, Occupational, and Residential Choices of Young Adults
Project Description The William T. Grant Scholars Program supports promising early-career researchers from diverse disciplines, who have demonstrated success in conducting high-quality research and are seeking to further develop and broaden their expertise. Selected as a 2010-11 Scholar, Dr. Elizabeth Ananat received funding from the W.T. Grant Foundation for this research. It will follow several…
Research Project
North Carolina School of Science and Mathematics Summer Ventures Program Evaluation
Project Description Every summer, The North Carolina School of Science and Mathematics (NCSSM) works with four universities (Appalachian State, North Carolina Central University, East Carolina University, and University of North Carolina-Charlotte) to bring rising juniors and seniors from across North Carolina to their campuses for the opportunity to take part in a four week program…
Research Project
Evaluation of Bridgescape Academy
Project Description Funding was received from Durham Public Schools to evaluate the Magic Johnson Bridgescape Academy, a new alternative high school program, on the academic engagement and performance of approximately 100 Durham area students who previously dropped out of high school and have enrolled in this new program. The evaluation consisted of qualitative methods including…
Research Project
Effects of Drug Treatment Courts on Outcomes of Adults and Their Children
Project Description This three-year study set will evaluate four types of courts, general, driving while intoxicated (DWI), drug and hybrid drug. Drug treatment courts (DTC) represent a promising innovation for dealing with crimes committed by offenders who have an underlying addiction problem. Specialty courts combine standard deterrence efforts with treatment. Project Aims This study has…
Research Project
Collaborative Proposal: A Data-Intensive Exploration of the Links between SES and STEM Learning Outcomes
Project Description This project brings together an interdisciplinary research team from Duke University, SRI International, Teachers College, and the Association of American Geographers to explore relationships between the socioeconomic status (SES) of students and their STEM learning outcomes. The motivations for this project are twofold (1) identify the links between SES and STEM Learning and…
Research Project
Advancing the Study of Human Development with 21st Century Technologies
Project Description This funding supported an interdisciplinary team of scholars from economics, electrical and computer engineering, medicine, psychology, public policy and sociology in developing the capacity to embed ‘intensive measurement bursts’ into two of the most widely accessed and cited cohort studies in the world that, collectively, have assessments spanning from birth to the fifth…
Research Project
Juvenile Justice Treatment Continuum
Project Description This project supported the Center’s effort to help 12 rural North Carolina counties secure evidence-based mental health services for children involved in the court system. Center staff also helped to create an evaluation plan for the project. Project Goals The purpose of this project is to aid children and their families who are…
Research Project
Strengthening Benefit-Cost Analyses of Substance Abuse Project
Project Description Substance abuse is estimated to cost the nation over $180 billion annually, yet relatively little is known about whether current evidence-based preventive interventions can efficiently reduce these costs. In order to conduct high quality benefit-cost analyses of substance abuse prevention efforts, researchers will require (1) comprehensive cost estimates that account for the resources…
Research Project
Neuroscience-Based Health Curriculum to Promote Academic Success
Project Description Students are expected to use their brain power to achieve academic, physical, and social success, although they receive no explicit instruction about how to care for and effectively use their brains. As neuroscientists and educators, we realize that recent advances in neuroscience about how the brain works have not yet been integrated into…
Research Project
Diseases of Despair in Young Adulthood: Risk, Resilience, and Prevention
Despite many years of research and rising suicides and a nationwide opiates public health emergency, we lack accurate and appreciable predictions of who will succumb to deaths of despair and who will be shielded from them.
Journal Articles
Resources
Lower neural value signaling in the prefrontal cortex is related to childhood family income and depressive symptomatology during adolescence
Lower family income during childhood is related to increased rates of adolescent depression, though the underlying mechanisms are poorly understood.
Books
Resources
Parenting Across Cultures from Childhood to Adolescence: Development in Nine Countries
Edited by Jennifer Lansford and Drew Rothenberg with Marc Bornstein, this book shares findings from a study of parents and children in China, Colombia, Italy, Jordan, Kenya, the Philippines, Sweden, Thailand and the United States. Each chapter is authored by a contributor native to the country examined. Together, the chapters provide a global understanding of parenting across cultures.
Journal Articles
Resources
Getting Tough? The Effects of Discretionary Principal Discipline on Student Outcomes
Nationwide, school principals are given wide discretion to use disciplinary tools like suspension and expulsion to create a safe learning environment.
Journal Articles
Raising the bar for college admission: North Carolina’s increase in minimum math course requirements
Charles T. Clotfelter, Steven W. Hemelt, Helen F. Ladd Education Finance and Policy (2019) 14 (3): 492–521. https://doi.org/10.1162/edfp_a_00258
Journal Articles
Resources
Impact of a Neuroscience-Based Health Education Course on High School Students’ Health Knowledge, Beliefs, and Behaviors.
The purpose of this pilot study was to evaluate the potential of an innovative high school neuroscience-based health course for implementation feasibility and impact on student outcomes.
Journal Articles
Resources
Predicting Patterns of Intimate Partner Violence Perpetration From Late Adolescence to Young Adulthood
Saint-Eloi Cadely et al. found longitudinal patterns for the perpetration of both psychological and physical intimate partner violence (IPV), including actively and minimally aggressive patterns.
Journal Articles
Resources
Multifaceted Aid for Low-Income Students and College Outcomes: Evidence From North Carolina
We study the evolution of a campus-based aid program for low-income students that began with grant-heavy financial aid and later added a suite of nonfinancial supports.
Journal Articles
Resources
Evaluation of a Public Awareness Campaign to Prevent High School Dropout
Many advocacy organizations devote time and resources to increasing community awareness and educating the public in an effort to gain support for their issue.
Reports
Resources
Self-Regulation and Toxic Stress Report 3: A Comprehensive Review of SelfRegulation Interventions from Birth Through Young Adulthood
This is the third in a series of four inter-related reports titled Self-Regulation and Toxic Stress.
Reports
Resources
Substance Use and Abuse in Durham County 2014
According to the North Carolina (N.C.) Division of Mental Health, Developmental Disabilities and Substance Abuse Services, approximately 18,000 adults and 1,000 children in Durham County abused or were addicted to illegal drugs, prescription medications, or alcohol in 2012(1). Substance abuse not only impacts the individual and his/her family, but also the community.
Reports
Resources
Mental Health Outreach Program (MHOP) Evaluation Report
This report summarizes preliminary findings associated with the MHOP program that began in Durham County in January of 2011.
Reports
Resources
America’s Promise Alliance: 10 Indicators of Academic Achievement and Youth Success
Approximately one quarter of U.S. students do not graduate from high school with their peers. Failing to complete high school severely limits opportunities for employment and future financial stability. High school dropouts earn lower wages through their lifetime and work for fewer years.1 The costs to society of high school dropouts are also high and…