Scope:
The initiative takes three approaches to understanding, predicting, and preventing adolescent health risk: (1) investigation of family and relationship dynamics (i.e., parent-child relationships, peer relationships, sexual and romantic relationships) that affect and provide the contexts for adolescent decision-making or risk-taking; (2) investigation of psychobiological mechanisms involved in behavior in adolescence; and (3) development and implementation of prevention/intervention strategies for youth who are marginalized or living in high-risk settings.
Goals and activities:
Strengthen the intellectual environment: Develop and sustain an integrated group of activities that engage faculty and trainees, including an informal “brown-bag” seminar series, ongoing graduate courses, and hosting a national / international conference.
Establish a collaborative research committee that internally reviews grants to improve our grant success rate and provide insight into one another’s work. Faculty and senior graduate students could participate in such a committee.
Develop collaborative projects: Initiate externally funded research, outreach and training grants that support faculty and trainee professional development and highlight program expertise.
Seek funding and create a research infrastructure for proposed Center on Adolescent Health and Development: Seek funding; Dedicate physical space for operations and collaborative work; earmark research funds for pilot and trainee research projects; develop a long-term staffing plan that includes: administrative, business, and IT / web support; graduate and post-doctoral fellowships; outreach / research translation position; and research faculty positions.
Disseminate research through community outreach and training; creation of research briefs and/or regular newsletter that summarizes research. For an overview of recent efforts, click here.