This application seeks to continue our training program in Prevention Research, which has provided training to 41 pre-doctoral and 31 post-doctoral students since its original funding by NIMH in 1987. We train researchers in the prevention of negative mental health outcomes among high-risk children under stress. We assume that preventive interventions are best derived from a thorough, theory-based, empirically-supported, understanding of the risk and protective factors that influence the development of a targeted outcome. We emphasize a stress and coping model that considers the complex interplay of factors at multiple levels including individual, family, peer, school, neighborhood, and cultural influences. We provide training in theory-based generative research; in the translation of this knowledge base into preventive interventions; in the implementation and empirical evaluation of these interventions; in the methodological and quantitative skills that are necessary to conduct these complex studies; and in the skills required to conduct these studies with different ethnic and cultural groups (with a particular focus on Mexican-American children and families). In this project period, we will increase our emphasis on placing these interventions into natural service delivery settings. Training is delivered through the ASU Prevention Research Center (PRC) and its collaborating ASU departments. The PRC is a collaboration between researchers from the Department of Psychology and the Department of Family Relations and Human Development (with more delimited participation from the College of Business and College of Law). The PRC includes multiple NIH-funded prevention research grants in which collaborative research teams design, implement, and evaluate theory-based preventive interventions including interventions for children of divorce, bereaved children, and Mexican-American adolescents making the transition to middle school. Faculty from clinical, social, developmental, and quantitative psychology, family studies, marketing, and law deliver training through a combination of research apprenticeships, an ongoing training seminar, and formal coursework. This application requests support to train 4 post-doctoral and 4 pre-doctoral fellows. Post-doctoral fellows will be recruited from component disciplines such as clinical, social, and developmental psychology, social ecology, statistics, sociology, and family studies. Pre-doctoral fellows are recruited from clinical, social, quantitative, and developmental psychology and family studies.
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