Society for Prevention Research
2013 Awards Presentation at 21st Annual Meeting, San Francisco, CA
May 30, 2013
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SPR 2013 Fellows
This year, we are pleased and proud to present the first cohort of SPR Fellows. The SPR Fellowship is an honor that SPR bestows upon a small and select group of members who have a particularly distinguished record of contributions in the field of prevention research. A distinguished record reflects a substantial body of work that has had a broad and significant impact on prevention science.
Dr. Gilbert J. Botvin
Dr. Gilbert J. Botvin has an international reputation as a behavioral scientist involved in the areas of health promotion and disease prevention, and is widely recognized as an expert in the field of tobacco, alcohol, and drug abuse prevention. He has been a productive researcher, publishing over 140 peer reviewed articles and book chapters, and presenting over 160 papers and invited addresses at national and international scientific meetings. Dr. Botvin has been a principal investigator on 20 federally funded school-based prevention projects involving over 300 schools and 40,000 students as well as principal investigator on several NIDA-funded grants including a 10-year drug abuse prevention follow-up study, a drug abuse and violence prevention trial with inner-city youth, and a center grant with collaborators at Columbia University focusing on drug abuse prevention with multi-ethnic youth.
Dr. Botvin is the developer of the highly acclaimed LifeSkills Training substance abuse and violence prevention program in the late 1970s. LifeSkills Training is a highly effective and well-respected evidence-based substance abuse and violence prevention program with more than 25 years of peer-reviewed research behind it. It is a Blueprints Model Program and has been endorsed by many U.S. government agencies, including the U.S. Department of Education, the Center for Substance Abuse Prevention, the National Institute on Drug Abuse, and the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (part of the U.S. Department of Justice).
Dr. Botvin has served as a consultant to numerous federal and state agencies, and as a member of many expert advisory panels and NIH grant review committees. He has served in these capacities for the National Cancer Institute, the National Institute on Drug Abuse, the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, the Center for Substance Abuse Prevention, the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, the U.S. Department of Education, and the White House Office on National Drug Control Policy, among others. In 1995, Dr. Botvin was the first prevention researcher to receive a prestigious MERIT award from the National Institute on Drug Abuse, an award given to the most outstanding senior scientists funded by NIH.
Dr. Botvin, as its inaugural editor, led the creation and development of Prevention Science from its initial conceptualization to its recognition as the prevention field’s preeminent journal with a well-respected impact score. During his term as President (2001- 2003) of the Society for Prevention Research, Dr. Botvin institutionalized SPR as an organization, opening an office in the DC area and hiring its first professional staff.
Dr. Botvin is a productive scholar, and he inspires others to emulate him in this regard. He is known to be a scientist of deep integrity-the advancement of knowledge, the seeking of truth, and the reporting of accurate, unvarnished reports are hallowed tenets. For him, the science always comes first; he is committed to prevention science and to promoting the highest standards of the field.
Dr. Patricia Chamberlain
Dr. Patricia Chamberlain is the developer of some of the best known and most effective preventive interventions in our field. These programs were designed to prevent negative outcomes for some of the highest risk children and adolescents in society, including children in foster care, youth in state mental institutions, and youth in the juvenile justice system. Her Multidimensional Treatment Foster Care (MTFC) program has been widely implemented throughout the U.S., Canada, and Europe, and is on numerous best-practices lists. Her KEEP intervention program for foster families is also widely implemented. Moreover, Dr. Chamberlain and colleagues have adapted the programs to address the needs of specific populations, including delinquent males and females, as well as preschoolers, school age children, and adolescents. All of these interventions have been evaluated and found to be effective via federally-funded randomized clinical trials. Further, independent economic analyses have found MTFC to be a cost-effective treatment for juvenile offenders. Together, these programs have changed the landscape of services and social policy, as well as the lives of many children and families, in the countries in which they have been implemented.
Dr. Chamberlain’s research is a prime example of how preventive intervention trials can also serve as tests of theoretical models. Specifically, her work demonstrates that by targeting hypothesized parenting-based mediators of child antisocial behavior, it is possible to impact life course trajectories of troubled youth. Her work in this area has not only advanced theory, but has also provided a model for other prevention researchers regarding how to evaluate the underlying “moving parts” of an intervention.
As evidence-based prevention strategies have become more widely available, a challenge for the field has been how to translate programs that were developed via efficacy trials into real-world settings. The field of implementation science has evolved to address these issues, and Dr. Chamberlain has been a leader in this area. In one very ambitious study, she randomized counties in California and Ohio to receive different strategies for implementation of MTFC (naturalistic vs. facilitated approaches). She has also developed new methods to assess stages of implementation that communities achieve in the course of attempting to implement a new intervention. This work – moving from efficacy trials into community settings – is at the cutting edge of Type II translational research.
As noted above, Dr. Chamberlain’s work has been widely implemented around the world. Her MTFC and KEEP intervention programs are being implemented at over 100 sites, including national level implementations in England. Moreover, the international work has included a strong research focus, including a randomized clinical trial in Sweden and ongoing evaluation efforts in other locations.
Throughout her career, Dr. Chamberlain has mentored numerous prevention scientists, who have themselves become leaders in the field. Dr. Chamberlain is an extremely successful mentor, having facilitated the launch of a number of independent research programs on topics of mutual interest. She is extremely supportive and generous when it comes to research publications. Because her work is continuously evolving, she does not claim specific turf; rather, she is likely to hand off areas that she has been working on to early career colleagues so that she may pursue other ideas and interests. When she does this, however, she remains actively involved in the projects.
Over the course of her career, Dr. Chamberlain has been PI on well over $30M in federal grant and private foundation funding. Moreover, she has authored more than 200 publications in professional journals, book chapters, edited books, and books. Her work consistently appears in top tier journals in the field.
Dr. Sheppard G. Kellam
Dr. Sheppard G. Kellam has been a tireless advocate for prevention research and has sought to lift the level of discourse about prevention as a science and as a field of practice in schools and communities. Dr. Kellam has played a major role in establishing concepts and methods for prevention. His many contributions from the concepts of mutual self-interest and community partnerships to school based interventions to change classroom management strategies to his methodological contributions and collaborations in understanding the many ways the trajectories of children can change when exposed to preventive intervention-have led the field.
Dr. Kellam has produced a body of work that has impacted the way that prevention is conducted. For example, in close partnership with the Baltimore City Public Schools System he led three generations of large scale epidemiologically based randomized field trials testing universal preventive interventions in first and second grade classrooms directed at early antecedents of long-term problem outcomes. This work began in 1984 and analyses of the impact of these trials still continue. Three rigorous randomized field trials of the Good Behavior Game have been supported by NIDA, NIMH, and NICHD over the last three decades and have shown that early prevention strategies for reducing a wide range of adolescent and adult behaviors and disorders is indeed possible and cost effective. The Good Behavior Game in first grade has been shown to reduce all of the following outcomes through young adulthood: aggressive behavior, conduct disorder, delinquency, antisocial personality disorder, and criminal behavior, tobacco, drug, and alcohol abuse/dependence disorders, suicidal ideation and attempts, and HIV sexual risk behaviors. To date, these trials have produced several hundred publications, led to the concept of variation in impact in prevention, and spawned a wide range of biostatistical and psychometric methods that are now used in prevention research. His conceptual work on developmental epidemiology, where early risk factors are targeted in natural settings such as classrooms, with preventive interventions that affect the developmental trajectories of youth, is one of the leading prevention models used today.
Dr. Kellam is now engaged in wide scale implementation of these and other evidence-based programs. He is currently working in partnership with SAMHSA in implementing the
Good Behavior Game as well as three other major prevention programs across communities, states, territories, and tribal areas. He has mentored and collaborated on research on the Good Behavior Game in the Netherlands, in Belgium, and in England.
Dr. Kellam’s work in translating his research into public policy and practice also includes his testifying to Congress early on about the value of prevention, ultimately leading to congressional funding for the first NIMH prevention centers. His work has also led directly to the first support by SAMHSA of a single prevention program, the Good Behavior Game, which is now being implemented in 21 school districts around the country.
Dr. Kellam has mentored an extraordinary number of early career investigators across a wide range of disciplines, including biostatistics, psychiatry, sociology, education, psychology, and political science. As director of an NIMH prevention research center for 15 years and director of a T32 postdoctoral training grant, and the chair of the department that hosted the Humphrey Fellows, his mentoring has had a profound effect on the field of prevention.
In summary, today, it would be difficult to find anyone’s successful prevention research project that has not been touched by Dr. Kellam’s contributions to the field. He has trained countless postdoctoral fellows and faculty as well as undergraduates in prevention; he was the first SPR president when this organization became institutionalized and led SPR to a major expansion in its membership and its mission; he has served on many NIH and federal committees.
Dr. J. David Hawkins
Dr. J. David Hawkins has devoted a large part of his career to developing scientific tools that are widely used to guide policy and practice in substance abuse and juvenile delinquency prevention at the community, state, federal, and global levels. Dr. Hawkins has contributed to a body of work that has changed how substance abuse and delinquency prevention is conceptualized in the United States. He is the lead author on a Psychological Bulletin article on risk and protective factors for substance abuse (Hawkins et al., 1992*) which has received 3,889 citations. He is a co-developer of the Social Development Model (SDM), a developmental theory of delinquency and drug use and has been the basis for most of the tested prevention programs. He has been instrumental in the development of tools that are currently used by communities to audit and create their own profiles of levels of risk and protection drug use and delinquency. Dr. Hawkins also co-developed tools that were useful to communities for identifying effective preventive interventions suited to their risk and protection profiles. This research-base is built into a prevention planning operating system called Communities That Care (CTC). The CTC program has been chosen by the OJJDP to orient communities to spending Title V delinquency prevention funds and as the prevention component of their Comprehensive Strategy. CSAP has also selected the CTC measurement system as a standard to be used in all new prevention needs assessment contracts and at least ten state agencies have adopted the CTC youth survey. Dr. Hawkins is currently the PI of a randomized controlled trial of CTC in 24 U.S. communities across seven states. CTC has been used in over 300 communities in the U.S. and in eight other countries. Specifically, Dr. Hawkins has been PI of two studies of CTC implementation in the Netherlands and he has presided over annual meetings for the past five years of international prevention practitioners working on implementing CTC around the world. The CTC strategy has changed the way that communities approach prevention of substance abuse and delinquency.
The second multicomponent intervention that Dr. Hawkins has developed and tested is the Seattle Social Development Project. This landmark study of developmental epidemiology has a preventive trial embedded within it, providing a model for understanding developmental epidemiology that also allows strong tests of causal hypotheses. This study followed a panel of 808 5th grade students who still remain in the study at age 38. Over 100 articles have been published describing results of etiology and intervention effects on a variety of outcomes including prosocial behavior, academic success, school conduct problems, delinquency, aggression and violence, substance use, mental health, and risky sexual behavior. The intervention is on multiple registries of effective programs including the recent list from the Office of Adolescent Health on evidence-based pregnancy prevention.
Dr. Hawkins is also the co-developer of a number of parenting programs to prevent child and adolescent problems. These include the widely distributed Guiding Good Choices (formerly Preparing for the Drug Free Years) curriculum which uses research evidence as the foundation to teach parents about risk and protective factors for drug use initiation. More than 100,000 families have participated in Guiding Good Choices workshops. Other preventive parenting programs include Raising Healthy Children, Preparing for School Success, and Staying Connected with Your Teen. Several of these programs have been disseminated as national models of evidence-based programs.
Dr. Hawkins is the founding Director of the prevention research organization, the Social Development Research Group (SDRG). He has been a PI or Co-PI on numerous NIH grants spanning over three decades, most of which have been in the prevention area. His work at SDRG and at the University of Washington has furthered the goals of prevention science through mentoring of graduate students and junior faculty and teaching of courses in prevention science for graduate and undergraduate students.
His contributions to prevention and etiological research have been recognized by practitioners, prevention scientists, and criminologists. In summary, Dr. David Hawkins has committed his career to translating research into practice and policy and to designing tools and programs aimed at the prevention and reduction of substance abuse and crime.
Dr. David P. MacKinnon
Dr. David P. MacKinnon is a prolific and well-respected researcher. According to Google Scholar, his 176 peer reviewed articles have been jointly cited more than 16,000 times. Importantly, the articles that appeared specifically in Prevention Science garnered a total of over 1,000 citations. Among these articles are highly cited classics on the topic of mediation analysis – a research area that David MacKinnon helped shape. His contributions to mediation analysis still influence research and practice and resonate in the literature. Much of the analytic approaches to mediation analysis in prevention science can in fact be traced back to Dr. MacKinnon’s work. His book, Introduction to Statistical Mediation Analysis, is the source for prevention researchers interested in mediation analysis.
Dr. MacKinnon’s impressive scholarly work integrates cutting-edge statistical methods with prevention science. Prevention scientists benefit from having tools available which are appropriate for the complex designs often encountered in this work (e.g., longitudinal designs, non-independent data, missing data) and the intricate research questions being asked (e.g., how does the intervention work, for whom does it work). In addition to the methods being developed that are appropriate for prevention scientists, because methodologists such as Dr. MacKinnon hold a passion for prevention research, many examples and applications of the methods are written with prevention research in mind.This eases the burden on prevention scientists learning newly developed methods. The field of prevention science also benefits from Dr. MacKinnon’s work on developing quantitative methods for prevention research because many top quantitative psychologists have followed his lead and continued method development for applications in prevention research. Quantitative psychology also benefits from the marriage with prevention science because these researchers are able to communicate to a broader scientific audience about the utility of developing methods, all the while increasing scholars’ exposure to prevention research.
Dr. MacKinnon was (and still is) consistently externally funded throughout many years to conduct research in the areas of prevention science and methodology. His funded research projects included the prevention of steroid use in student athletes, fostering of healthy lifestyle choices in firefighters, evaluation of warning labels, and more recently interventions for patients suffering from fibromyalgia. His more methodological work on mediation analysis and extensions thereof has also been repeatedly funded.
David MacKinnon is not only an outstanding researcher in many respects; he is also an ardent and passionate supporter and advocate of prevention science and the way it affects the lives of people.
Dr. David L. Olds
Dr. David L. Olds has a distinguished career in the field of prevention science, having contributed at all ends of the “research to practice” spectrum, including the identification of a problem, theory-testing, development of a program to address the problem, program testing, and program scale-up. His commitment to improving the health and developmental outcomes of babies born to at-risk parents (especially low-income, single mothers) began approximately 37 years ago when, as a young Ph.D. student. He began formulating a model to help these families. Ultimately, his formulation of the necessary ingredients required to achieve such broad-scale outcomes in young children and families would become one of the best-known, evidence-based programs nationally and internationally–the Nurse Family Partnership model.
Dr. Olds has spent his career developing and testing this model in a series of randomized trials beginning in Elmira, New York, in 1977; followed by Memphis, Tennessee, in 1988; and Denver, Colorado, in 1994. He is dedicated to ensuring that the program meets the highest evidence-based standard, evident by his refusal to take the program to scale prior to sufficient testing. His concern with understanding the generalizability of his model prompted him to move beyond the rural, white community of Elmira and test it in urban centers and communities of color (in Memphis with African Americans, in Denver with Hispanics). The testing of the Nurse Family Partnership model has included longitudinal designs to determine the long-term impact on child and maternal outcomes (19 year follow-up in Elmira, and 12 year follow-up in Memphis). By 1996, Dr. Olds felt the program had adequately shown the results necessary for dissemination of the model. Dr. Olds has set an example for the prevention research field by continuing to test the success of his model for different populations and for sustained effects.
Dr. Old’s dedication and success in developing, evaluating and scaling up the Nurse Family Partnership program is indeed a shining beacon for the field, providing a prototype for other researchers and program developers to follow.
Dr. Olds is a major advocate of “program fidelity,” never allowing modifications of the Nurse Family Partnership program without proper testing. This was evident in the 70’s when federal funding was offered to replicate the program, but with paraprofessionals rather than nurses. Dr. Olds refused this funding, knowing that the program had not been proven with paraprofessionals as implementers. However, the question of whether paraprofessionals could successfully implement the model must have lingered in the mind of Dr. Olds as the test in Denver was specifically designed to answer this question.
He has led the way in translational research and set the standard for others who desire to scale-up their programs. Today, Nurse Family Partnership is implemented in 41 states, approximately 270 counties nationally, and serves over 22,000 vulnerable families per year. In his home state of Colorado, the program is implemented in nearly every county in the state and over 15,000 children have been protected since the program went into effect 12 years ago. President Obama has dedicated $1.5 billion in federal support over a five-year period to expand the Nurse Family Partnership program to low income, first-time mothers throughout the country.
Dr. Olds has also been a leader of the prevention science movement globally, as Nurse Family Partnership has been adopted internationally, with programs underway in England, Scotland, Northern Ireland, Netherlands, Germany, Canada, and Australia. These programs have been tailored to fit the local contexts, but Dr. Olds has accomplished this without sacrificing model fidelity. He collaborates with investigators who are testing the model in these new contexts. The tenets of evidence-based policy and practice are often instilled and nurtured by his groundbreaking work in these countries.
Dr. Irwin N. Sandler
Over the past four decades, Dr. Irwin N. Sandler has produced a substantial body of research in prevention science and has played a central role in setting the agenda for the field. He has also made significant contributions through his service on national task forces, leadership roles in national organizations and societies, and mentoring of students and junior colleagues.
Dr. Sandler is an internationally-recognized researcher with a longstanding history of significant contributions to prevention science. He is an extremely productive scholar who has over 200 publications. He also has a remarkable record of federal funding; his work has been continuously supported over the past 30 years by grants from the National Institute of Mental Health, National Institute on Drug Abuse, and W.T. Grant Foundation.
Dr. Sandler is best known for his scholarly contributions in three interrelated areas, understanding the processes by which stress and coping affect psychological outcomes, designing and evaluating theory-based preventive interventions for at-risk youth and their families and articulating the relations between developmental theories, models of resilience and preventive interventions. His research on “unpacking” stressful situations and identifying malleable protective factors has had an important influence on the field. More specifically, Dr. Sandler’s work on tailor-made life events checklists advanced our ability to identify components of risky situations that affect adjustment problems and his work on moderators of the stress-adjustment problem relation identified several individual, dyadic and contextual processes that could be leveraged to mitigate the effect of stressors. His research in these two areas provided a natural bridge to his work on designing and evaluating theory-based preventive interventions. In this research, he has used theory and prior research to identify potentially modifiable correlates of adjustment problems, designed programs to change these correlates, rigorously examined the short- and long-term effects of these programs and conducted mediational analyses to identify the specific components of the programs that accounted for their effects on adaptive outcomes. Dr. Sandler’s research on developing and evaluating prevention programs is known for its exceptional methodological rigor and true integration of generative and applied research.
Over the past two decades, Dr. Sandler has played a critical role in the programs of research for two groups of at risk youth. He has taken the lead on a program of research with parentally bereaved youth and an invaluable collaborator on my research with children whose parents have divorced. Randomized experimental trials of these two programs have demonstrated meaningful effects on multiple domains of functioning both immediately after program completion and up to fifteen years after participation. Further, mediational analyses have identified the active ingredients of the programs and cost-benefit analyses have shown cost savings of program participation. Dr. Sandler is now the principal investigator on a large-scale effectiveness trial of the program for divorced families. Dr. Sandler has also made important contributions to the field through his literature reviews and conceptual articles that have articulated innovative models for developing prevention programs.
Dr. Sandler has helped to define the future of prevention science not only through his own research but through mentoring students and junior colleagues. He has formally mentored more 20 doctoral students, many of whom have gone on to make important contributions to the field. During his long tenure as the founder and Director of the ASU Prevention Research Center, Dr. Sandler was Co-Principal Investigator on its training grant. Over 50 post-doctoral students have been supported by this grant. He has also served as a mentor for six K awards and for the last decade, has been part of the Child Intervention, Prevention and Services Summer Institute. In addition to these formal mentoring relationships, Dr. Sandler has informally mentored numerous undergraduate, graduate and postdoctoral students and junior colleagues. His promotion of early-career researchers and their publication career serves as a model to others and serves the field of prevention science well by increasing the growth of the field in the future. Prevention science is a team activity, and Dr. Sandler’s career clearly demonstrates that principle.
Dr. Zili Sloboda
Dr. Zili Sloboda has been one of the most active and dedicated members of the Society for Prevention Research, serving as one of its founding members, and remaining active in several capacities. Dr. Sloboda’s scholarly productivity is prodigious, covering a body of research that encompasses three major areas relevant to prevention science: (a) substance use epidemiology and prevention, (b) HIV-AIDS, and (c) cancer research. Collectively across these three areas, Dr. Sloboda has published 74 articles in peer-reviewed journals. In addition, Dr. Sloboda has also been active in developing and editing books and monographs on substance use epidemiology and strategies for prevention of HIV/AIDS. Within this body of work, she has published eight books or monographs, including volumes for the NIDA monograph series. She also has written or edited 26 book chapters. Dr. Sloboda has been a productive scholar who has made major contributions not only as an author, but also through her work as an editor of publications directly influencing the field of prevention science.
Leadership within the field, both informal and formal has been a hallmark of Dr. Sloboda’s participation as an academician and scholar; and, as a colleague and innovator. As noted previously, Dr. Sloboda served as one of the founders of SPR. And, at the first SPR meeting in 1991, she along with Bill Bukoski served as program chairs. She also solicited the support of other prominent researchers in substance abuse prevention ensuring a broad span across interests across SPR in etiology, epidemiology, and prevention. Since that time, Dr. Sloboda has continued to foster the growth and expansion of SPR as a premier organization dedicated to prevention across the spectrum of societal concerns.
Serving formally as a teacher for over 2 decades early in her career, Dr. Sloboda devoted time to leading learners through the morass of topics at the center of public health issues. From hospital settings to lecture halls, Dr. Sloboda taught about drug abuse, sociology, medical care, treatment services, program evaluation, and environmental factors influencing health. Not only did she teach the content of these areas, she made direct connections between those discrete topics and the issues surrounding public health such as cancer and substance abuse. Her capacity to effect the transfer of factual knowledge to real life concerns was an integral part of the learner’s experience in her classroom.
Mentoring also is a hallmark of Dr. Sloboda’s involvement in the science of prevention. In roles from Senior Scientist to NIDA Acting Director of Epidemiology and Prevention Research, she has invested time, effort, resources, and her talents in the support of aspiring students and new investigators. She has actively engaged community members in education efforts and initiatives for the early detection of cancer. She has fostered the translation of scientific findings to public health, both in practice and in policy initiatives from positions in academia to positions in the private sector—all focused on the improvement of public health for all communities through strong research agendas in prevention.
In addition to these considerable achievements, Dr. Sloboda has a history of impressive funded research that has helped change the way that prevention science is conducted. Her work encompasses a range of national and international initiatives including work with NIDA, WHO, and the United Nations with U.S. State Department collaborators; and, across topics as wide ranging as sickle cell, national evaluation designs, community education, early cancer detection, and addictions. Dr. Sloboda, with former NIDA co-worker Richard Needle, established the International HIV/AIDS Prevention Network, a network supported by WHO, UNAIDS, and CDC, among other world-wide and U.S. collaborators whose mission is to combat this global health challenge.
From this amazing array of experiences, Dr. Sloboda continues to inform and illuminate prevention science through works in progress. In this realm, Dr. Sloboda is currently working on several topics that will be influential in translating scientific findings into practice and policy. As editor and guest editor of several in process publications, Dr. Sloboda’s insights on school problems, juvenile crime, juvenile delinquency, and violence will resonate with prevention scientists and practitioners alike. Moreover, her work with co-editors will manifest in a new perspective scheduled to benefit all of prevention science with the first book in a series entitled Advances in Prevention Science—Defining Prevention Science leading the way. From Scientific Advisory Groups to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime to World Health Organization initiatives, Dr. Sloboda has made prevention—the science and the informed practice of—her life’s work to the betterment of all of our lives regardless of walk of life. Her commitment to community—scientific, practitioner, and public alike—has contributed to the advancement of the field of prevention science in an immense and nearly immeasurable manner.
Dr. Patrick H. Tolan
Dr. Patrick H. Tolan is an international leader in the field, making significant substantive and methodological contributions, has been influential in translating scientific findings into public policy and practice, and has been a strong mentor of graduate students and junior faculty in the field of prevention science. His research is of the highest quality, as demonstrated through his many publications and awards.
Over the last 20 years, Dr. Tolan has consistently received awards and federal funding for his research from diverse sources including the National Institutes of Health, the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, SAMHSA, and the William T. Grant Foundation. Dr. Tolan’s major research interest has been understanding the development of and prevention of serious delinquency and violence, an issue of national concern. In relation to his primary interest, one focus has been articulating and testing a developmental-ecological model of child development, particularly as it applies to families living in poor urban communities. His major work has been a combination of longitudinal studies of development of youth within this ecological context, prevention efficacy and effectiveness trials, and methodology related to risk prediction and prevention. Because of the importance of his research and the respect that he has gained, Dr. Tolan is regularly asked to serve as an advisor for policy, particularly in regard to violence prevention.
He serves as Chair of the American Psychological Association’s Working Group on Children’s Mental Health. He also served as Chair of the APA’s Committee on Children, Youth and Families. Organized through the Public Interest Directorate of APA, the Committee promotes knowledge development and dissemination; engages in policy analysis and advocacy; and provides information and referral and consultation to members and the public. He is on the Advisory Board for the Center for the Study and Prevention of Youth Violence program “Blueprints.”
While in Illinois, Dr. Tolan served on the Advisory Board of Future Kids. He served as an advisor to the Illinois Center for Violence Prevention Evaluation Resources Institute, the Domestic Violence Coordinating Council of the Circuit Court of Cook County and the Illinois Criminal Justice Authority Evaluation of Balanced and Restorative Juvenile Justice Act. Currently in Virginia, he is a member of the Advisory Board for the state’s evaluation of academic achievement, and the Scientific Advisory Committee of the Military Children’s Education Coalition.
Dr. Tolan has been asked to testify before Congress on several occasions. He has testified before the House of Representatives Subcommittee on Crime during an Oversight Hearing on Preventing and Fighting Crime: What Works? His review of “what works” in violence prevention has been used to inform a number of state and federal violence prevention initiatives including a $140,000,000 initiative by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. His work helped to guide a school violence reduction demonstration project in Illinois, “Safe to Learn” funded through the Illinois Violence Prevention Authority and the Attorney General’s Office.
SPR 2013 AWARDS
The SPR Sloboda & Bukoski Cup is presented to the team winning the annual SPR Cup competition. The SPR Cup is an opportunity for a unique experience: several independent groups of scientists, each working with the same data set prior to the conference, will conduct a literature review, generate hypotheses, conduct analyses, and prepare a presentation. Teams will present their results at a special symposium during the SPR annual meeting. A panel of judges and audience members will rate the quality of the research and of the presentation.
Presidential Award
The Presidential Award is given to those who have made a major lifetime contribution to prevention science research.
This year, we are pleased to present the Presidential Award to Dr. Mark Greenberg who is the Edna Peterson Bennett Endowed Chair in Prevention Research and Director of the Prevention Research Center for the Promotion of Human Development at Penn State University. Dr. Greenberg’s scholarly work and contributions to the field of prevention research exemplify the characteristics for which the Presidential Award was intended. He is an international leader in the field, making significant substantive and methodological contributions, has been influential in translating scientific findings into public policy and practice, and has been a strong mentor of graduate students and junior faculty in the field of prevention science. His research is of the highest quality, as demonstrated through his many publications and awards. Over the last 30 years, Dr. Greenberg has consistently received funding for his research from diverse sources including federal agencies and private foundations.
Dr. Greenberg has been conducting research on the effectiveness of innovative models of preventive intervention, including the effectiveness of school-based curricula (The PATHS Curriculum) for improving the social, emotional, and cognitive competence of elementary-aged children. He has also worked to develop an understanding of how risk and protective factors operate to place children at risk for aggression and other conduct problems. He is the founding Director of the Prevention Research Center for the Promotion of Human Development at The Pennsylvania State University. The aims of the Center are to promote the well-being of children and youth and reduce the prevalence of high-risk behaviors and poor outcomes for children. Research conducted through the Center has led the field in the area of type 2 translational research and his work done in collaboration with the State of Pennsylvania serves as a model for promoting use and support of evidence-based preventive interventions throughout the state.
Dr. Greenberg has been an extremely productive scholar. He is the author or co-author of more than 200 books, chapters, and articles. He has been an invited speaker at both national and international meetings. He is an extremely distinguished scholar and highly worthy of the Presidential Award.
Community, Culture, and Prevention Science Award
The Community, Culture, and Prevention Science Award is given for contributions to the field of prevention science in the area of community and culture.
This year, we are pleased to present the Community, Culture, and Prevention Science Award to Dr. David Henry for his work with Alaska Natives through his collaboration with faculty and staff at the Center for Alaska Native Health Research, University of Alaska, Fairbanks. He brings advanced methodological skill in prevention science to his work with the Center, focused broadly on understanding, preventing, and reducing health disparities in indigenous communities. At all stages of research, tribal groups and local agencies are included in helping to frame research questions and to interpret and apply data to prevention and treatment. Much of the work is focused on understanding how cultural variables influence the understanding of disease expression in Alaska Native people so that research findings and intervention are valid and culturally appropriate.
This work follows (and is conducted at the same time as) his 20 years of research conducted in Chicago focused on risk and prevention of aggression and violence among minority youth living in poor urban communities. As with his work in Alaska, this work has focused on understanding culture and the community ecology as related to risk and protection and using that research to inform the development of prevention programs for this population. His major work has been a combination of longitudinal studies of development of youth within this ecological context, prevention efficacy and effectiveness trials, and methodology related to risk prediction and prevention.
Dr. Henry has and will continue to devote his career to enhancing our understanding of the importance of culture and ethnicity in understanding risk, intervention development and impact.
Prevention Science Award
The Prevention Science Award is given for the work of developing and testing prevention strategies.
This year, we are pleased to present the Prevention Science Award to Dr. Karen Bierman who is one of the preeminent leaders in the field of prevention science and child clinical psychology, with an outstanding record of programmatic work with wide-ranging impact on theory, practice, and policy in two areas: the development of peer relations and aggression, as well as the development of effective prevention programs. Particularly impressive is the contribution Dr. Bierman’s work has made to the development of comprehensive prevention models for children at high risk for violence, delinquency and other adolescent problem behaviors. As one of the original Principal Investigators of Fast Track, she has now spent two decades directing one of the most important studies in the history of prevention science. Furthermore, Dr. Bierman’s work is focused on how to improve the lives of children and families as well as the quality of schools and communities. While her research is of the highest scientific quality, it has simultaneously been done by developing long-term mutually beneficial partnerships with schools and communities throughout Pennsylvania. These collaborations are mutual: with The Pennsylvania State University researchers and students learning from the knowledge and skills of school and community staff, and at the same time, she has translated this information into new evidence-based programs that can benefit these communities.
Although Dr. Bierman has been involved in a series of important studies including Fast Track, the Head Start REDI Project, and PATHS to Success, her work which deserves special attention is Head Start REDI which is a series of two longitudinal trials focused on how to improve Head Start outcomes by improving both social and emotional programming, pre-literary programming, integrating socialemotional and literacy training together, and in addition, reaching out to parents. In a series of papers reported in Child Development, Development and Psychopathology, Social Development, American Education Research Journal, and Early Childhood Research Quarterly, her work has shown substantial improvement in children’s school readiness and behavioral outcomes. It has shown that Head Start programs can be substantially improved by using theoretically-driven, teacher– tested new models of intervention.
Dr. Bierman’s work speaks to a wide range of audiences spanning from the numerous local communities (school- and community-based practitioners) to government policy-makers, including her testimony to the U.S. Senate. Her ability to develop long-term collaborations with schools, Head Starts, and community agencies is a model for scientists who strive to do high quality outreach scholarship in prevention science.
Translational Science Award
The Translational Science Award recognizes contributions to the field of prevention science in the area of Type I or Type 2 translational research.
This year, we are pleased to present the Translational Science Award to Dr. Helene White. Dr. White’s ability and success for more than 35 years at applying an interdisciplinary perspective – sociology, criminology, development psychology, and clinical psychology – to the study of addictive behaviors makes her research unique. Another unique characteristic of Dr. White’s research has been to use a life course perspective to explore causal mechanisms that predict addictive behavior. In particular, she has investigated the interactions of individual and environmental factors and how they shape the development of substance use and criminal development of these behaviors over the life course. Her etiological research forms the basis for the development of preventive interventions.
Dr. White’s early research with the Rutgers Health and Human Development Project (HHDP) and other longitudinal data sets made innovative methodological contributions to the substance use field. She and her colleagues were among the first researchers to apply person-centered analyses to understand trajectories of substance use and their antecedents and consequences. These types of analyses are now commonly used in outcome evaluations. Another major methodological contribution was the development of the Rutgers Alcohol Problem Index (RAPI) with E. Labouvie.
The RAPI has become one of the “gold standards” assessment tools throughout the world for measuring problem drinking in clinical settings and research studies evaluating alcohol prevention programs for college students. Dr. White’s current work extends her early research on adolescents to changes in substance use during emerging and young adulthood. This body of research has broadened the perspective in the field and has highlighted the need for substance use prevention programs for non-college emerging adults. Her research identified the transition out of high school as being particularly critical for substance abuse prevention.
This led her to translate her etiological research into developing prevention programs for this age group. In 2003, she and her colleagues at the Rutgers Center of Alcohol Studies were awarded a NIDA Transdisciplinary Prevention Research Center grant to study substance use prevention during important developmental transitions. Her group was the first to evaluate the efficacy of these interventions for reducing drug (not only alcohol) use among mandated students.
Overall, Dr. White’s research has contributed to the advancement of the field of prevention science in a highly influential manner and produced methodological work that has helped change the way prevention science is conducted.
International Collaborative Prevention Research Award
The International Collaborative Prevention Research Award recognizes contributions to the field of prevention science in the area of international collaboration.
This year, we are pleased to present the International Collaborative Prevention Research Award to Dr. Eric Brown whose research focuses on the development and testing of community- and school-based preventive interventions. Currently, Dr. Brown is the Principal Investigator of a National Institute on Drug Abuse funded study examining risk factors for adolescent drug
use, delinquency, and violent behaviors between the Unites States and Colombia. Dr. Brown also works on several other national and international studies including international examinations of risk and protective factors for youth behavior problems among the United States, Australia, Chile, and the Netherlands; evaluation of school bullying prevention programs; and examination of the effects of child maltreatment on the development of antisocial behaviors. He also is currently an Investigator on the Community Youth Development Study, which is a long-term national randomized controlled trial testing the efficacy and sustainability of the Communities That Care prevention system in the United States, and is a consultant with the Nuevos Rumbos Corporation on the adaptation and implementation of Communities That Care in Colombia.
In addition to these contributions, Dr. Brown is currently engaged in the following international prevention science projects and mentorships: Principal Investigator on a NIDA funded R01 (1R01 DA031175-01A1) grant that conducts secondary analysis of risk and protective factor data from the CTC Youth Survey to assess the measurement equivalency between Colombia and the U.S., and assess the cultural appropriateness of the data for local prevention programming by Colombian community coalitions; consultant to the Nuevos Rumbos Corporation in Bogotá on their adaptation and implementation of Communities That Care in Colombia; consultant to the Paz Ciudadana Foundation in Chile on their work to measure risk and protective factors data from the CTC Youth Survey, with possible comparisons to U.S. and Colombian data; dissertation team member and advisor to Arthur Correa of the University of Brasilia who is translating the CTC Youth Survey into Portuguese and validating the survey for use in Brazil; and consultant to Dr. Sheila Giardini of the University of Brasilia on the development and evaluation of the Diferenciando Baladas de Ciladas intimate partner violence prevention program in Brazil. He is also collaborating with the Work Bank’s Social Development Unit, Latin America and Caribbean Region, on their violence prevention initiatives in Honduras.
Service to SPR Award
The Service to SPR Award is given in recognition of outstanding service to the organization.
This year, we are pleased to present the Service to SPR Award to Dr. Luanne Rohrbach and Dr. Richard Spoth for their service as co-chairs of the Society for Prevention Research Mapping Advances in Prevention Science (MAPS) Type 2 Translational Research Task Force (supported through NIH, NIDA R13 Conference Grant Supplement, 15R13DA021047-08SI). The (MAPS) Task Forces are charged with advancing promising ideas and scientific efforts generated through the SPR Annual Meeting, in order to foster emerging areas of prevention science; articulate an agenda to move research forward in such emerging areas; and to nurture the scientific leadership and capacity required to make the advances. With the outstanding leadership of Drs. Spoth and Rohrbach the MAPS II, Type 2 Translational Research Task Force has been working for more than four years to address a number of aims including: preparation of guidelines for the conduct of Type 2 translational research, development of training materials for new prevention researchers, recommendations for support of Type 2 translational research, and development of materials on the key elements of Type 2 translational research designed for program implementers and practitioners. The culmination of their work is the recent publication of the article Addressing Core Challenges for the Next Generation of Type 2 Translational Research and Systems: The Translation Science to Population Impact (TSci Impact) Framework in Prevention Science (Richard Spoth, Louise A. Rohrbach, Mark Greenberg, Philip Leaf, C. Hendricks Brown, Abigail Fagan, Richard R. Catalano, et al). The completion of the work of the task force coincides with contemporary federal initiatives that have placed a priority on supporting science based approaches through encouraging and, in some cases, mandating the use of evidence-based programs.
In addition to being exemplary scholars, Drs. Spoth and Rohrbach through their leadership and countless hours of volunteerism have contributed to the advancement of prevention science and SPR’s standing as the preeminent scientific organization within the area of prevention science.
Friend of ECPN
The Friend of ECPN Award is presented to a mid-career or senior preventionist who has supported and encouraged early career prevention scientists or issues. The recipient of the Friend of ECPN Award will have been active in supporting early career activities, either by helping ECPN as an organization; promoting training, funding, or early career involvement in prevention efforts; or encouraging early career preventionists in their work.
This year, we are pleased to present the Friend of ECPN Award to Dr. Brian Flay who has been an outstanding mentor and friend to numerous students, post-docs, and junior prevention scientists. Dr. Flay is known for his thought provoking research methods courses and for providing extensive written and verbal feedback on course assignments. As a mentor to junior prevention scientists, he provides detailed edits, comments and advice on manuscripts, and grant applications. As a member of dissertation committees, he provides guidance in developing research questions, goals for the student’s dissertation, and the development of a plan to meet those goals. Dr. Flay’s mentees quote him as saying “Follow your passion-and become the world’s expert in it!” Dr. Flay has a passion for helping early career prevention scientists do just that – find their passion and become experts. His influence, advice, and support have significantly impacted students and early career professionals advance their scholarship in the field of prevention science.
ECPN John B. Reid Early Career Award
This year, we are pleased to present the ECPN John B. Reid Early Career Award to Dr. Jeffrey Temple. As a young researcher, Dr. Temple has been very active and productive, publishing in many competitive journals. While the quantity of his publications is excellent, the quality and impact of his publications are also noteworthy. Through his research, Dr. Temple has increased our understanding of the etiology and course of interpersonal violence. As demonstrated by his publication record, Dr. Temple has been on the forefront of understanding the predictors of interpersonal violence.
Dr. Temple has a strong record of collaboration, and he has a very impressive trajectory of successfully obtaining extramural funding, especially for a young researcher. In particular, his funding from the National Institutes of Health and the National Institute of Justice to further understand the determinants of interpersonal violence should greatly contribute to the field and will result in important publications.
Constantly striving to become a better researcher, Dr. Temple has been dedicated to learning about intervention development and research methodologies to evaluate and test interventions. He has demonstrated his commitment to the field by learning about Intervention Mapping, and collaborating with The University of Texas Prevention Research Center on a dating violence prevention project. As an esteemed colleague, an excellent researcher, and a productive scholar, Jeffrey Temple is highly worthy of the John B. Reid Early Career Award.