Margaret Kuklinski

Margaret’s work aims to promote healthy behaviors and positive developmental outcomes in young people through prevention science, upstream preventative and health-promoting interventions, and health economics. As a prevention scientist, Professor Kuklinski focuses on increasing the reach of evidence-based prevention through research and practice. She has led several NIH and foundation-funded trials, including implementation and evaluation trials and studies of Communities That Care (CTC), a framework for community-led prevention with lasting impact on youth behavioral health, and Guiding Good Choices, an evidence-based intervention that strengthens parenting. As a health economist, professor Kuklinski has helped set methodological standards for cost, benefit-cost, and cost-effectiveness analyses of interventions for children, youth, and families. Professor Kuklinski has also led health economic studies of several preventive interventions and co-chaired the Health Economics Working Group under NIDA’s HEAL Prevention Initiative. She recently served on the National Academies’ consensus study that produced Blueprint for a National Prevention Infrastructure for Mental, Emotional, and Behavioral Disorders.

Education:

• PhD, Psychology (Clinical and Community), University of California, Berkeley, CA

Professional Interests:

• Prevention science
• Family- and community-based prevention
• Health economics (cost, benefit-cost, cost-effectiveness analysis)
• Multilevel risk and protective influences on positive development

Representative Publications:

• Kuklinski, M. R., Gibbons, B. J., Bowser, D. M., McCollister, K. E., Smart, R., Dunlap, L. J., Shenkar, E., Bonar, E. E., Boomer, T., Campbell, M., Fiellin, L. E., Hutton, D. W., Rao, V., Saldana, L., Su, K., Walton, M. A., & Yilmazer, T. (2025). Investing in interventions to prevent opioid use disorder in adolescents and young adults: Start-up costs from NIDA’s HEAL prevention initiative. Prevention Science, 26(5), 1045-1055.
• Halvorson, M. A., Kuklinski, M. R., Bailey, J. A., Caouette, J. D., Guttmannova, K., Rhew, I. C., & Oesterle, S. (2024). Young adults with a history of substance use disorder experienced more negative mental health, social, and economic outcomes during the COVID-19 pandemic period. Addiction, 119(9), 1597-1607.
• Hogue, A., Brykman, K., Guilamo-Ramos, V., Ilakkuvan, V., Kuklinski, M. R., Matson, P., McKnight, E. R., Powell, T. W., Richter, L., & Walker-Harding, L.R. (2024). Family-focused universal substance use prevention in primary care: Advancing a pragmatic national healthcare agenda. Prevention Science, 25(2), 307-317.
• Leighty, J., Kuklinski, M. R., Cooper, B., Haggerty, K. P., Oxford, M. L., Peavy, K. M., & Walker-Harding, L. R. (2024). Prevention: The missing link in our efforts to support families impacted by the opioid epidemic. Health Affairs Forefront, February 9.
• Sterling, S. A., Kline-Simon, A., Metz, V. E., Eisenberg, N., Grijalva, C., Iturralde, E., Charvat-Aguilar, N., Berrios, G., Braciszewski, J., Beck, A., & Kuklinski, M. R. (2024). Pilot implementation of Guiando Buenas Decisiones, an evidence-based parenting program for Spanish-speaking families, in pediatric primary care in a large, U.S. health system: A qualitative interview study. Journal of Prevention, 45(6), 902-918.
• Dunlap, L. J., Kuklinski, M. R., Cowell, A., McCollister, K. E., Bowser, D. M., Campbell, M., Fernandes, C.-S. F., Kemburu, P., Livingston, B. J., Prosser, L. A., Rao, V., Smart, R., & Yilmazer, T. (2023). Economic evaluation design within the HEAL Prevention Cooperative. Prevention Science, 24(Suppl. 1), S50-S60.
• Kuklinski, M. R., Small, J. W., Frey, A. J., Bills, K., & Forness, S. R. (2023). Cost effectiveness of school and home interventions for students with disruptive behavior problems. Journal of Emotional and Behavioral Disorders, 31(4), 272-284.
• Rowhani-Rahbar, A., Oesterle, S., Gause, E. L., Kuklinski, M. R., Ellyson, A. M., Schleimer, J. P., Dalve, K., Weybright, E. H., Briney, J. S., & Hawkins, J. D. (2023). Effect of the Communities That Care prevention system on adolescent handgun carrying: A cluster-randomized clinical trial. JAMA Network Open, 6(4), e236699.
• Counts, N. Z., Kuklinski, M. R., Kelleher, K. J., & Wang, Y. C. (2022). Valuing the cross-sector benefits from improving youth health to drive investment in place-based preventive interventions in the US: A simulation modeling study. Preventive Medicine, 156, 106981.
• Kuklinski, M. R., Oesterle, S., Briney, J. S., & Hawkins, J. D. (2021). Long-term impacts and benefit-cost analysis of the Communities That Care prevention system at age 23, 12 years after baselinehttps://doi.org/10.1007/s11121-021-01218-7. Prevention Science, 22(4), 452-463.