SDRG Projects
Research projects at SDRG seek to harness prevention science to improve lives among diverse populations. We do this by conducting research in multiple, coordinated areas, including:
- Seeking to understand the underlying causes of behavior, health, and social problems
- Developing and testing interventions designed to prevent behavior, health, and social problems
- Understanding how to take effective interventions out of the research setting and into the real world
- Studying service systems and working to improve them
Past Projects
Effects of Child Maltreatment on Adult Substance Use and Mental Health (2012)
This is a secondary data analysis project that focuses on the long-term effects of child maltreatment and other forms of family adversity on adult substance use behaviors and mental health problems. Data are from the Lehigh Longitudinal Study, a unique prospective investigation of the causes and consequences of child maltreatment, which began in the 1970s...
Risk Factors for Adolescent Drug Use in the United States and Colombia (2012)
The Republic of Colombia is currently undergoing a dramatic transformation from a traditionally drug-exporting country to an increasingly drug-consuming country. Increasing rates of adolescent alcohol and illicit drug use, and youth violence, have prompted an urgent call for prevention initiatives. This call requires the development, adaptation, and implementation of prevention programs, strategies, and systems developed...
CYDS: Netherlands Supplement (2011)
This supplement compares the implementation of Communities That Care (CTC), a community prevention system to prevent adolescent drug use and delinquency, in the Netherlands and the United States. This project is conducted collaboratively by researchers from the Social Development Research Group at the University of Washington in the United States and from the Verwey-Jonker Institute...
Supporting Early Adulthood Transitions (SEAT) Study (2011)
The Supporting Early Adulthood Transitions study is a collaborative project with the Social Development Research Group, the Annie E. Casey Foundation, and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to evaluate the Jim Casey Youth Opportunities Initiative as an evidence-based intervention for youth with foster care experience who are aging out of care. The Initiative works...
Common Sense Parenting (2010)
This is a five-year experimental test of the efficacy of the Boys Town Common Sense Parenting® (CSP) program targeted toward a selective sample of eighth-grade students to improve the transition to high school. Both the original program and a modified version that is supplemented with materials piloted by the Social Development Research Group from the...
Communities That Care Trainings – Manitoba (2010)
SDRG is providing Manitoba’s Healthy Child Manitoba Office (HCMO) with strategic consultation to develop provincial supports for community implementation of Communities That Care (i.e., student survey and technical assistance to provincial staff designated to support CTC implementation) and has contracted with certified CTC trainers to deliver the full series of CTC trainings and technical assistance...
CYDS: Margaret Kuklinski Supplement (2010)
Dr. Margaret Kuklinski received a supplemental research grant to conduct economic analysis of the Community Youth Development Study (CYDS). The study consisted of cost-benefit analyses of the preventive effects of CTC on substance use and delinquency in youth, and an assessment of the effects of the economic downturn on the sustainability of the Communities That...
CYDS: Science-based Community Intervention in Indian Country (2010)
This supplement will provide a unique opportunity to better prepare the Communities That Care (CTC) program to be sustainable and produce population-wide effects in Indian country. This supplement will allow us to augment the primary community diagnostic and outcome instrument, the CTC Youth Survey, to include potential culturally specific risk and protection indicators and to...
Exploring Implementation of Drug Abuse Prevention in Treatment Settings (2010)
This study was designed to fill an important gap in health services research on the process of agency adoption and implementation of tested and effective family-based prevention programs. This study is unique in that it braids a theoretical model of behavior development with a process for supporting high-quality program implementation of tested and effective drug...
King County Department of Community & Human Services – AAFT Evaluation (2010)
The Social Development Research Group consulted with Therapeutic Health Services and King County on the Evaluation of the Assertive Adolescent and Family Treatment Project. SDRG assisted with the process evaluation of the program adaptations, and with the analysis of outcome data gathered for the program being delivered to young adults.