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
OSPI/UW Middle School Guidance Curriculum Initiative (2010)
This project seeks to define research-based personal-social, academic-educational, and career development middle school competencies and outcomes. A logic model will be developed to connect developmental guidance and interventions to impact identified outcomes. This is Phase 1 of a three-phase project. Phase 1 will develop a responsive service model that will promote future orientation and assist...
Seattle Public Schools High School Graduation Initiative (2010)
SDRG is working with the Seattle Public Schools (SPS) to evaluate the High School Graduation Initiative, which aims to reduce risk, increase protection, and improve attendance, behavioral issues, and academic performance in students at risk of dropping out of school. Under this project, SPS will address student needs with an array of evidence-based interventions and...
Staying Connected—Partners for Our Children (2010)
This three-year study is designed to evaluate the feasibility of disseminating an evidence-based, self–directed, family-focused substance abuse prevention program (Staying Connected with Your Teen) within the foster care system. Staying Connected with Your Teen is a family-based intervention to prevent substance use, risky sexual behavior, and violence during adolescence that has shown long-term (two-year) effects...
Developing Safe Street Capacity to Implement Communities That Care Model (2009)
This project seeks to provide the Safe Streets Campaign of Tacoma, Washington with the capacity to implement and sustain the Community Action Plans developed through the Communities That Care program developed at the Social Development Research Group. The proposal includes training in prevention science, assessment, data review, and identification of best practices in the field...
Media Impact on Preschool Behavior (2009)
This project focuses on improving the media diet of young children by decreasing the amount of violence they watch and by increasing the amount of prosocial programming they view. The goal is to study the effects of this intervention on children’s behavior. The project is funded by the National Institute of Child Health and Human...
SSDP – Gene-Environment Interplay in the Development of Addiction (2009)
Tobacco and alcohol abuse and dependence are leading preventable causes of disease and death in the United States. Vulnerability to develop tobacco and alcohol dependence and comorbid problems is influenced by a combination of environmental and genetic factors. This two-year grant will allow the Seattle Social Development Project to proceed with collecting and analyzing genetic...
Family Connections Health Disparities (2008)
This project is a six- and eight-year follow-up of the Family Connections project. In the original study, a universal family-based intervention to prevent drug use and other problem behaviors, Parents Who Care, was evaluated in two formats: self-administered with telephone support and parent and teen group meetings. Families of eighth graders were randomly assigned to one...
Maximum Individualized Change Analysis (MICA) (2008)
This study expands the research base on analytic methods to assess intervention effects of interventions that target multiple outcomes in heterogeneous populations. Specifically, the project continues the study of the Maximum Individualized Change Analysis (MICA) procedure developed by Boothroyd, Banks, Evans, Greenbaum, and Brown (2004). The method was initially developed as an analytic alternative to...
SSDP – Understanding Alcohol Misuse, Abuse and Dependence in Young Adulthood (2008)
This study examines the occurrence and course of binge drinking, alcohol abuse, and alcohol dependence in young adulthood (ages 21 to 30) in the Seattle Social Development Project panel. The study seeks to understand the relationship between childhood and adolescent patterns of alcohol use and young adult binge drinking, alcohol abuse, and alcohol dependence through...
Steps To Respect (2008)
The Social Development Research Group is partnering with Committee for Children to conduct a large-scale school-randomized evaluation of Steps To Respect: A School Bullying Prevention Program. The evaluation calls for 32 schools in four California counties to be randomly assigned to either the intervention condition, receiving the Steps to Respect program, or the control condition....