Current Projects

PROSPER Long-Term Follow-Up

The purpose of the PROSPER project is to promote the development of sustainable partnerships among schools, communities and universities, in order to facilitate the delivery of scientifically-tested interventions designed to reduce adolescent substance use or other problem behaviors and to promote youth competencies.

Promoting Strong Military Families through PROSPER Partnerships

This research applies the scientifically proven PROSPER delivery system for evidence-based, family-focused interventions to achieve the goal of strengthening National Guard, Reserve, and Active duty families—reducing youth problem behaviors and decreasing family dysfunction—by integrating and synergizing civilian and military support infrastructures for military families.

Children Youth & Families at Risk

This is a collaborative effort among the Cooperative Extension Systems of West Virginia and Iowa and the Partnerships in Prevention Science Institute. The focus of the project is to use the PROSPER delivery system on two West Virginia and two Iowa communities.

An RCT of a Family-Centered Ojibwe Substance Abuse Prevention

This is a multisite randomized controlled trial of a family-centered alcohol and drug prevention program for Anishinabe (Ojibwe) pre-adolescents aged 8-10 years. This program has been developed and adapted in partnership with multiple Anishinabe communities over a span of 13 years. The Bii-Zin-Da-De-Dah (BZDDD) (Listening to One Another) program was the first American Indian adaptation of the Iowa Strengthening Families Program.

Implications of Genetic Variance for Substance Use Interventions in Adolescence

This project examines Genetic-Environment interplay by adding a large panel of candidate genes implicated in substance use to the PROSPER study, a prospective cohort study of preventative interventions’ impact on adolescent substance use. A data set of 3,000 participants with DNA and measures of substance use and abuse outcomes across adolescence and into early adulthood (dependency measures are included in early adulthood) are being analyzed for this study.

PROSPER Partnership for Students Success

This work seizes an opportunity to: advance a new preventive care practice model for adolescent behavioral health in rural areas; embed empirically-supported, cost efficient services in routine community care provision; and leverage 25 years of NIH-funded research on prevention and public health. It explores Affordable Care Act (ACA)-driven hospital community outreach for adolescent behavioral health services, oriented toward assessment of potential public health impact.