This proposal is for the continuation of a Prevention Research Center at Arizona State University. The Center has a 14 year record of scientific accomplishments and training the next generation of prevention scientists. The Center develops theory and interventions for children in high stress situations, particularly children in poverty, children experiencing marital transitions, and bereaved children. The Center has made significant contributions to knowledge concerning factors which affect the development of mental health problems for children in multiple stress situations. The Center has also developed preventive interventions to change empirically-supported risk and protective factors and conducted six experimental efficacy trials. In our next five years, we propose an extensive agenda of conceptualization and measurement of processes that influence the development of mental health problems for children in stress, such as children's coping processes and the acculturation processes that impact immigrant Mexican American families. We will study potentially modifiable factors that influence the development of mental health problems for children in poverty, children experiencing marital transitions, and bereaved children. We will conduct studies to develop innovative preventive interventions with high potential to reach the population by employing widely disseminable modalities that include videotapes and literature for children. We will also advance theory about culturally competent interventions for ethnic minorities and we will develop practical guidelines for their use. We will conduct longitudinal follow-up studies to test the long-term effects of our interventions. In all our studies, we will utilize state-of-the-art methodologies. In addition, the Center will contribute to the development of critical new research methods for the field. Further, we will continue our commitment to training the next generation of prevention scientists. Our Center includes a multi-disciplinary group of prevention researchers that includes the disciplines of psychology, family studies, quantitative methods, anthropology, sociology, psychiatry, economics, English, law, public policy, special education, and nursing. Our Center involves active collaborations with 31 nationally and internationally recognized scholars.
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