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
Friends of the Children Foster Care Adaptation (2017)
Friends of the Children (FOTC) is a professional mentoring program that has recently expanded to work with children in the child welfare system. FOTC pairs foster youth with mentors who work with them from kindergarten until high school graduation. The goal of FOTC’s foster care program is to provide support to youth and caregivers, mitigate...
YouthPower – Making Cents International Evidence and Evaluation (2015)
Making Cents International was selected by USAID to be a prime contractor for the five-year Youth Power: Evidence and Evaluation IDIQ, which has an overall ceiling of $72 million. This initiative, jointly funded by USAID’s Bureau for Global Health (GH) and U.S. President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief; Bureau for Economic Growth, Education, and Environment...
Fostering Higher Education (2014)
This two-year project focuses on designing a college-focused intervention for young people transitioning from foster care to adulthood that contains components of educational advocacy, mentoring, and substance abuse prevention programming. This intervention will be designed to address both postsecondary access and retention. Intervention development will involve community stakeholder focus groups, convening of an expert scholar...
Keeping Families Together Pilot Study (2014)
The Keeping Families Together pilot study is evaluating an adaptation of the Communities That Care community mobilization model. The study is assessing whether this adapted approach will lead to improvements in child well-being and reductions in child-related problems including abuse and neglect in families with children aged 0 to 10. This pilot is taking place...
Marijuana Legislation and Changes in Youth Marijuana Use and Related Risk Factors (2014)
As the national discussion around legalization of marijuana proceeds, there is an urgent need for scientific evidence from timely, carefully implemented studies informing whether such changes in marijuana laws affect youth development. The goal of this project is to draw on existing state-wide data assessments to understand whether changes in marijuana-related legislation affect marijuana and...
Using Facebook to Recruit Parents to a Parenting Program to Prevent Teen Drug Use (2014)
This study examines the feasibility of using the social networking site Facebook to recruit parents to complete a self-directed parenting program to prevent teen alcohol, tobacco, and marijuana use. The study compares two recruitment methods: Facebook advertisement and web-based respondent-driven sampling. By targeting parents in Washington and Colorado, this study responds to growing concerns that...
Effects of Child Maltreatment on Antisocial Behavior (2013)
This is a secondary data analysis project that seeks to replicate and extend published research findings on the combined and unique effects on antisocial behavior, crime, and adulthood interpersonal violence perpetration and victimization of differing forms of child maltreatment and childhood exposure to domestic violence, subsequent forms of victimization, and stress. The study also investigates...
SSDP – Effects of Marijuana Legalization in Washington State on Norms, Use and Parenting (2013)
The goal of this study is to investigate marijuana legalization in Washington State and its association with changes in marijuana norms, patterns of marijuana use, and use of other substances. The study examines the moderating role of environmental factors and adult functioning, and assesses marijuana-specific parenting behaviors in order to inform prevention efforts. The study...
SSDP – Environmental Mechanisms for Health, Drug Abuse, and HIV Risk Behavior In The 30s (2013)
This study investigates the interrelationships among physical health (including increasing rates of obesity), mental health, drug abuse, and HIV risk in the 30s by augmenting data from the Seattle Social Development Project (SSDP). The study examines the health effects of two broad environmental domains: the social environment – defined by social interactions and developmental experiences...