ABSTRACT
Due to the success of concerted investments in child health, more children are surviving into adolescence and the burden of disease has shifted to non-communicable diseases often produced by behavioral health problems, including tobacco, alcohol and other drug use, violence, risky sexual behavior, unsafe driving and mental health problems. These behavioral health problems increase risk for illness and death throughout adulthood. Over the last 40 years, longitudinal studies have identified potential causes of these behavior problems, often called risk and protective factors. Prevention scientists have designed and rigorously tested preventive interventions to reduce known risk factors and enhance protection. These studies have identified effective preventive interventions. Widespread installation of tested and effective preventive interventions could have significant public health impact.
Despite the progress of prevention science, tested, effective prevention programs are not widely implemented in communities. Implementation science has dramatically expanded in the last 15 years, suggesting that if the discoveries of prevention science are to impact behavioral health in the twenty-first century, communities need to build prevention infrastructures across multiple sectors to take full advantage of prevention science progress. This presentation will describe one of these tested approaches to building prevention infrastructure, Communities That Care (CTC). This approach builds prevention infrastructures to guide communities in using local data to choose, install, and monitor tested and effective preventive interventions to address elevated risks and suppressed protective factors affecting their youth. The CTC process and outcomes from a 24 community randomized trial will be described.
DR. RICHARD CATALANO
Dr. Richard Catalano is the Bartley Dobb Professor for the Study and Prevention of Violence, and co-founder with Dr. David Hawkins of the Social Development Research Group at the University of Washington. For more than 30 years, he has led research and program development to promote positive youth development and prevent problem behavior. He is the co-developer of the Social Development Model; the parenting programs “Guiding Good Choices,” “Supporting School Success,” “Staying Connected with Your Teen,” and “Focus on Families”; the school-based program, “Raising Healthy Children”; and the community prevention program, “Communities That Care”.
Dr. Catalano’s work has focused on discovering risk and protective factors for positive and problem behavior, designing and evaluating programs to address these factors, and using this knowledge to understand and improve prevention service systems in states and communities. He has served on expert panels for the National Academy of Sciences, federal and state government, and foundations. He has published over 350 articles and book chapters. His work has been recognized by practitioners (1996 National Prevention Network’s Award of Excellence); criminologists (Fellow of the Academy of Experimental Criminology, 2007 August Vollmer Award from the American Society of Criminology, and 2003 Paul Tappan Award from the Western Society of Criminology); prevention scientists (2001 Prevention Science Award, 2012 Presidential Award from the Society for Prevention Research, President-elect, Society for Prevention Research), and social workers (Fellow in the American Academy of Social Work and Social Welfare).
He received his bachelor’s degree in sociology from the University of Wisconsin, and his master’s and Ph.D. degrees in sociology from the University of Washington.
