Completed Grants

Adolescent Decision-Making Study (ADMS)
Funding period: April 1, 2010–March 31, 2012
Principal Investigators: Dr. Leslie Leve, Dr. Joshua Weller
Funded by: National Institute on Drug Abuse
Grant number: R21 DA027091
The Adolescent Decision-Making Study addresses a gap in the understanding of how decision-making processes might be associated with healthy and health-risking behaviors in adolescent girls. The sample consists of 100 girls who participated in the Middle School Success Program, which was aimed at preventing the onset of problem behaviors among a sample of girls in foster care. In the ADMS study, adolescent girls (age 15–17) participated in an in-person, analog decision-making assessment, and girls and their caregiver completed questionnaires about their behaviors and decision-making strategies. The aims of the study were to (1) examine the processes underlying decision making in girls with a history of foster care involvement; (2) examine the extent to which family variables (e.g., maltreatment history, caregiver transitions) and temperamental variables may be antecedents of advantageous decision making; (3) test the associations between decision-making skills and health-risking sexual behaviors, drug use, deviant peer associations, and delinquency; and (4) conduct an exploratory (post-hoc) examination of the association between intervention condition, decision making, and maladaptive behavioral outcomes.

 

Center on Early Adolescence
Center for Prevention of Problems in Early Adolescence
Funding period: June 2005–May 2010
Principal Investigator:Dr. Anthony Biglan, Oregon Research Institute
Associate Directors: Dr. Thomas Dishion, CFC; Dr. Carol Metzler, Oregon Research Institute
Funded by: National Institute on Drug Abuse, National Institutes of Health

This center was dedicated to research about understanding the development of problem behavior in early adolescence and prevention practices in the state of Oregon. It was a collaboration between Deschutes Research, Inc.; Oregon Research Institute; Oregon State University Department of Public Health; PAXIS Institute, Tucson, AZ; University of Oregon Child and Family Center; University of Oregon Educational and Community Supports; and University of Oregon Institute on Violence and Destructive Behavior. Its mission was to conduct high-quality research on the development, treatment, and prevention of problems of early adolescence; ensure effective dissemination of empirically based interventions to ensure successful social and academic development of all adolescents; bring about a measurable reduction in the prevalence of adolescents with psychological or behavioral problems; and disseminate improved methods for research on early adolescence.

 

CIAO
Understanding and Preventing Adolescent Drug Abuse
Funding period: September 28, 2002–September 27, 2004
Principal Investigator: Dr. Thomas Dishion
Co-Investigators: Dr. François Poulin, Université du Québec à Montréal, Canada; Dr. Jeffrey Kiesner, Universita de Padova, Italy
Funded by: National Institute on Drug Abuse, National Institutes of Health

The CIAO project tested a prevention model of substance use, Project Alliance 1, in Montréal, Québec, and Padova, Italy. The project sought to validate the cross-cultural use of a comprehensive set of assessment tools used to study the development of early drug use. Patterns of substance use initiation and persistent use of various substances during adolescence were compared at each site among 150 youth, age 14 to 15, and their families. Data about substance use, individual and family adjustment, and peer and family processes have contributed to the emerging research base about cross-cultural differences in drug use and socialization. Several papers have resulted from this collaborative, international project.

 

The Community Shadow Project
Family Intervention of Youth AOD in Indian Communities
September 1999–March 2010
Principal Investigator: Dr. Alison Boyd-Ball
Co-Investigators: Dr. Kate Kavanagh, Dr. Thomas Dishion
Funded by: National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, National Institutes of Health

The Community Shadow Project studied the benefits of engaging American Indian families and their adolescent youth in a family-based intervention (EcoFIT) developed by Dishion and colleagues (Dishion & Kavanagh, 2003; Dishion & Stormshak, 2007). The project focused on tribal-specific, culturally sensitive family engagement strategies; established resource centers in tribal mental health centers; implemented EcoFIT within the tribes’ behavioral health programs; and evaluated the benefits of the intervention.

 

Development and Psychopathology Training Program
Seminar series: Development, Emotion, Ecology, and Psychopathology (DEEP)
Funding period: June 30, 2009–June 30, 2014
Principal Investigator: Dr. Elizabeth Stormshak
Faculty/Mentors in 2013–2014: Dr. Krista Chronister, Dr. Phil Fisher, Dr. Ellizabeth Skowron, Dr. Elizabeth Stormshak
Funded by: National Institute on Mental Health, National Institutes of Health
Grant number: T32 MH20012

In this program undergraduate education project assistants, graduate-level predoctoral trainees, and postdoctoral fellows were trained in child and adolescent mental health, with an emphasis on developmental psychopathology research and the science of developing effective interventions for youths and families. Connections between neurobiology and developmental, clinical, and school psychology were emphasized. The program was guided by a developmental–ecological model, addressed questions from multiple domains of development (e.g., neuroscience and parenting interventions, culture and school success), and included training in methodology and theory. Two weekly, yearlong training venues were organized by themes, with particular relevance to emerging issues in development and psychopathology and the specific interests of research trainees.

 

Early Family Prevention of Adolescent Alcohol, Drug Use, and Psychopathology
Funding period: May 1, 2014–June 30, 2015
Principal Investigators: Dr. Leslie Leve, University of Oregon; Dr. Thomas Dishion, Arizona State University; Dr. Daniel Shaw, University of Pittsburgh; Dr. Melvin Wilson, University of Virginia
Funded by: National Institute on Drug Abuse
Grant number: R01 DA036832

This randomized prevention trial is testing the long-term effects of the Family Check-Up (FCU) for enhancing parenting practices from toddlerhood through adolescence. The sample was originally recruited from WIC centers in three geographically, socioeconomically, and ethnically diverse communities: Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; Charlottesville, Virginia; and Eugene, Oregon. The children and families were initially assessed at child age 2 and then yearly through age 10.5. In this follow-up study families are being interviewed at child age 13.5 and 15.5, DNA samples are being collected from youths, and the long-term effects of the FCU intervention on adolescent problem behavior are being tested.

 

Early Growth and Development Study: Family Process, Genes, and School Entry
Funding period: September 1, 2007–July 31, 2014
Principal Investigator: Dr. Leslie Leve
Funded by: National Institute on Child Health and Human Development, National Institute on Drug Abuse, Office of Behavioral and Social Sciences Research
Grant number: R01 HD042608

This study built on emerging evidence about the relationship between heredity and the family environment, that is, nature and nurture, and how the two work together and separately in child development. It was the first of its kind to examine these issues while also examining general adoption issues, such as openness. The study followed a linked sample of adopted children, adoptive parents, and birth parents as the children entered the early school-age years; each birth parent was surveyed once and each adoptive family three times (child age 4.5, 6, and 7 years).

 

Early Experience, Stress Neurobiology, and Prevention Science
Principal Investigators: Megan Gunnar, PhD (University of Minnesota); Philip Fisher, PhD (UO Subcontract)
Funded by: National Institute of Mental Health
This study about the effects of stressful early environments on the developing brain and on the extent to which interventions can remediate these effects brought together scientists who examine these issues in animals and in humans. The specific neural systems investigated included the limbic-HPA axis, components of the prefrontal cortex involved in executive functioning, and elements of the threat appraisal-response system. Network studies that involved children examined how these systems are affected by different types of early stress, including neglect and other forms of maltreatment and institutional rearing (among children adopted from overseas orphanages). Also investigated was whether improved behavioral functioning observed in connection with therapeutic interventions is concordant with changes in these neural systems. The subcontract to the University of Oregon supported Research Component 1, which aimed to examine (1) how early life stress affects neurobiological and behavioral functioning in maltreated, toddler-age children in foster care, and (2) how variations in foster caregiving affects the neurobiological functioning and subsequent psychosocial outcomes of this population.

 

Early Start
Family-Based Prevention for Early Conduct Problems
Funding period: September 1, 2000–August 31, 2003
Principal Investigator: Dr. Daniel Shaw, University of Pittsburgh
Co-Investigator: Dr. Thomas Dishion
Funded by: National Institute on Mental Health, National Institutes of Health

Early Start tested a family-based preventive intervention with two-year-old children at risk for developing significant conduct problems. It provided the necessary pilot data to test the model’s applied efficacy, now being studied in the Early Steps project.

 

Ecological Approach to Family Intervention and Treatment
Funding period: March 1, 2009–February 28, 2014
Principal Investigator: Dr. John Seeley, Oregon Research Institute
Principal Investigators: Dr. Thomas Dishion, Dr. Elizabeth Stormshak, Child and Family Center
Co-Principal Investigator: Dr. Keith Smolkowski, Oregon Research Institute
Intervention Coordinator: Dr. Kevin Moore, Child and Family Center
Funded by: Institute of Education Sciences
Grant number: R324A090111

The effectiveness of the Positive Family Support intervention was assessed in 41 Oregon public middle schools. Measured outcomes included improved student attendance, improved grades of high-risk students, decreased expulsions, decreased use of suspensions, and decreased critical incidents of student problem behavior. In Level 1, a family resource center provided the means to inform parents about the school’s expectations and about their student’s social, emotional, and academic adjustment to the school context. In the Level 2 home–school partnership, parents received daily or weekly data about their child’s attendance, completion of academic tasks, and behavior. At Level 3 students who needed more support were encouraged to participate in a Family Check-Up (FCU) with their caregivers, which had been revised to focus on parental monitoring of their student’s adjustment at school and of their peer group and parenting practices relevant to those outcomes. For each school, a network of more intensive services was identified to complement the FCU intervention in terms of support services for families.

 

Family Check-Up for Early Childhood
Funding period: December 1, 2013−December 31, 2015
Principal Investigator: Dr. Elizabeth Stormshak, University of Oregon
Funded by: Ford Family Foundation
Grant number: 20130431

The overarching goal of this project is to partner with rural Oregon communities to increase the number of children who enter kindergarten school ready. PSI scientists and staff are identifying local staff to be trained in implementation of the Family Check-Up, recruiting participant families, and supporting assessment and tailored intervention. Fidelity of intervention uptake and of implementation will be measured and evaluated as it relates to anticipated outcomes. Outcomes of interest to families receiving the FCU include reductions in child problem behavior, increased attention and self-regulation skills at school, increased positive parenting skills, and increased language development and early literacy skills. Researchers will work with community stakeholders to develop a plan for sustaining the model in the preschool setting after funding has ended.

 

Family Check-Up Website
An Internet Infrastructure for Quality Implementation of the Family Check-Up
Funding period: September 30, 2009–August 31, 2012
Principal Investigator: Dr. Elizabeth Stormshak
Co-Investigators: Dr. Thomas Dishion, Dr. Kate Kavanagh
Funded by: American Recovery and Reinvestment Act

The goal of this research has been to improve the implementation effectiveness and dissemination of the Family Check-Up (FCU), an ecologically based child and family intervention designed to reduce substance use, support positive family interactions, and reduce child problem behavior. This goal has been accomplished by using Internet-based technological and media support to enhance the FCU protocol.

 

A Family Intervention to Prevent Child Maltreatment
Funding period: September 1, 2008–August 31, 2011
Principal Investigator: Dr. Elizabeth Stormshak
Co-Investigators: Dr. Thomas Dishion, Dr. Kate Kavanagh
Funded by: Centers for Disease Control

This research is testing the implementation effectiveness of the Family Check-Up (FCU), an ecologically based and empirically validated family-centered intervention designed to reduce problem behavior and coercive family interactions and prevent child maltreatment. A particular aim of this study is to increase the potential for therapists to focus on family management skills known to increase successful child adjustment and to decrease the coercive family processes associated with child maltreatment.

 

Family Motivational Interviews for ETOH and Teens in the ER
Funding period: January 1, 2002–December 31, 2006
Principal Investigator: Dr. Anthony Spirito, Brown University, Providence, RI
Co-Investigator: Dr. Thomas Dishion
Funded by: National Institutes of Health/National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism

This project compared a brief integrated individual and family intervention designed to reduce alcohol use and related problems and an enhanced standard care condition (standard care plus family assessment).

 

Gene–Environment Interplay and Childhood Obesity: An Adoption Study
Funding period: September 1, 2011–May 31, 2016
Principal Investigators: Dr. Jody Ganiban, George Washington University; Dr. Leslie Leve, University of Oregon (PI of UO subcontract)
Funded by: National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Disease
Grant number: R01 DK090264

This study is exploring child physical growth and health. The focus is on the eating habits and behaviors of adopted children, adoptive parents, and birth parents from birth to middle childhood, and the researchers are currently examining family dietary habits, food preferences, physical activities, and child growth patterns when children are 7–9 years old. Of particular interest is identification of environmental and genetic factors that promote physical growth and healthy weight over time.

 

Inhibitory Control Training to Remediate the Effect of Early Adversity in At-Risk Youth
Combined funding period: January 1, 2014–June 15, 2015
Principal Investigator: Dr. Elliot Berkman, University of Oregon
Funded by: Center on the Developing Child at Harvard; National Institutes of Health Translational Drug Abuse Prevention Center
Grant number: NIH P50 DA035763-02

This combined study evaluates the feasibility of an intervention to reduce peer-linked risk behaviors by increasing inhibitory control in a sample of at-risk adolescents. Peer-associated risk behaviors and their sequelae are pronounced among individuals with high levels of early adversity (EA), and EA is associated with inhibitory control deficits throughout childhood and adolescence. This research seeks to quantify the effects of EA on inhibitory control and the neural mechanisms through which those effects might be remediated with intervention. Groups with high and low levels of EA will be compared in terms of their underlying neural systems for inhibitory control and how those systems respond differently to intervention.

 

Juvenile Justice Girls: Pathways to Adjustment and System Use in Young Adulthood (GLO)
Funding period: February 15, 2009–December 31, 2013 
Principal Investigator: Dr. Leslie Leve
Funded by: National Institute on Drug Abuse
Grant number: R01 DA024672

This study was a follow-up of two randomized intervention cohorts aimed at improving adjustment and reducing delinquency during adolescence. As teenagers, the 166 women had been referred for out-of-home care because of their involvement in the juvenile justice system. Girls were randomly assigned to either receive Multidimensional Treatment Foster Care (MTFC) services or to receive community treatment as usual (e.g., group care). The original studies examined the characteristics and contexts of gender-appropriate treatments that help girls improve their supportive and productive relationships and level of functioning in the community and reduce their criminal activity, drug use, and health-risking sexual behavior. This study followed the original study participants into young adulthood (ages 21–28) to further understanding of the pathways to healthy adjustment and prevention of sexual risk-taking, drug use, and child welfare and adult corrections involvement. One in-person assessment was conducted with each female and her current romantic partner (if she had one); in addition, telephone interviews were conducted every 6 months for the duration of the study.

 

The Middle School Success Project (MIDG)
Funding period: February 1, 1997–November 30, 2009
Principal Investigator: Dr. Leslie Leve
Funded by: National Institute of Mental Health
Grant number: R01 MH54257
The Middle School Success Project aimed at understanding the effectiveness of providing enhanced, focused services for preadolescent girls in foster care.  The intervention was designed to prevent problems that could affect the girls’ future. The families in the intervention group attended weekly group and individual skills training and support throughout the girls’ first year in middle school. The families in the control group received services as usual from child welfare and/or their schools. One hundred foster care girls and their foster parents participated in in-person and telephone interviews five times during the course of 36 months.

 

Next Generation
Enhancing Family-Based Prevention of Adolescent Drug Use
Funding period: October 1, 2000–September 30, 2003
Principal Investigator: Dr. Thomas Dishion
Co-Investigator: Dr. Elizabeth Stormshak
Intervention Coordinator: Dr. Margaret Veltman
Funded by: National Institute on Drug Abuse, National Institutes of Health

Next Generation focused on understanding how middle school parents and schools can work together to promote success, health, and well-being in the next generation of youth. It examined the impact of school-based family interventions for preventing substance abuse and other problem behavior in young adolescents. The study involved about 1200 participants each year across eight middle schools in Eugene School District 4J, Oregon.

In collaboration with the school district, Next Generation provided free services for parents. The project goals were to (a) understand which services are most helpful and to find the most cost-effective way to offer those services to parents who have children in middle school; (b) to improve understanding of how children’s successes and problems develop during adolescence; and (c) to learn more about the role of parents in the teenage years in both academic and social success.

 

Oregon Parent Project (OPP)
An RCT of Parent Training for Preschoolers with Delays
Funding period: June 1, 2011–February 29, 2016
Principal Investigator: Dr. Laura Lee McIntyre, University of Oregon
Co-Investigator: Dr. Thomas Dishion, Arizona State University
Funded by: National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, National Institutes of Health
Grant number: DA212880

This study is examining child and family well-being during the preschool period in 200 families with young children with developmental delays or disabilities. Children and families participate in six assessments during a two-year period. Half of the families are invited to attend OPP parent education classes based on a modified version of the Incredible Years parent training program. The Oregon Parent Project examines the effects of various early childhood interventions and services on children's adaptive behavior, problem behavior, and family well-being during early childhood.

 

Project Alliance 1: Genetics
Development, Ecology, and Prevention of Early Adult Addictive Behavior
Funding period: September 15, 2011–May 31, 2016
Principal Investigators: Dr. Allison Caruthers, University of Oregon; Dr. Thomas J. Dishion, Arizona State University
Co-Investigator: Dr. Danielle Dick, Virginia Commonwealth University
Funded by: National Institute on Drug Abuse, National Institutes of Health
Grant number: DA070301

This program of research is testing genetically informed ecological models of the development of alcohol and other drug (AOD) use and dependence, antisocial behavior, and high-risk sexual behavior in adulthood, and is examining the malleability of risk and protective processes as addressed in the intervention protocol of the Family Check-Up (FCU). In middle school, the original study sample had been randomly assigned to the FCU in an earlier iteration of the PAL 1 study. Intervention effects were found on drug use from age 11 through 14 years, and long-term intervention effects were observed with respect to AOD use in late adolescence. These effects were found to extend to ages 23–24. DNA from this sample is being collected and analyzed, and the study will test genetically informed ecological models of adaptation and maladaptation from early adolescence to adulthood.

 

Project Alliance 2: Transitions
Promoting Adolescent Success in the High School Transition
Funding period: May 27, 2005–February 28, 2010
Principal Investigator: Dr. Elizabeth Stormshak
Co-Investigators: Dr. Thomas Dishion, Dr. Kate Kavanagh
Project Director: Dr. Allison Caruthers
Funded by: National Institute on Drug Abuse, National Institutes of Health

We learned a great deal about substance use prevention with middle school youth from the past decade’s work with Project Alliance 1. The goal for Project Alliance 2 was to build on our success from Project Alliance 1 and enhance that study’s effects. Specific aims were to enhance school-wide behavior management by establishing family resource centers in participating schools, address expectations and concerns relevant to the transition to high school, develop and test intervention components that focus on cultural enhancement, evaluate how family engagement affects the growth of adolescent risk behaviors, and develop a training and fidelity model.

 

Self-, Peer-, and Distant Other-Authored Messages for Cigarette Smoking Cessation
Funding period: September 1, 2012–August 31, 2014
Principal Investigator: Dr. Elliot Berkman
Funded by: National Institutes of Health, University of Michigan Center for Excellence in Cancer Communications Research
Grant number: P50 CA101451

This research sought to make health messages about cigarette smoking cessation self-relevant by personally tailoring them to increase their persuasiveness and effectiveness. Self-relevance recruits activation in the medial prefrontal cortex of the brain, which is predictive of health behavior change. The study also sought to help determine whether self-authored messages are more effective than other messages or whether distance from the self improves message effectiveness, and whether self-authored messages recruit the same or different neural systems as do other-authored messages. This study incorporated neural, self-report, and behavioral measures of health-related message effectiveness and used predictive statistics and computational linguistic analyses.

 

The Shadow Project
Multicultural Interventions for Adolescent Substance Use
Funding period: September 1, 1999–August 31, 2002
Principal Investigator: Dr. Thomas Dishion
Project Director: Dr. Alison Boyd-Ball
Funded by: National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, National Institutes of Health

The Shadow Project studied the benefits of engaging American Indian families in the treatment of their adolescent youth referred for drug and alcohol problems. The three-year pilot project focused on culturally sensitive strategies for engaging American Indian families in the process of supporting sobriety among their adolescents who were participating in a six-week residential program. Two intervention strategies were compared using a quasi-experimental design. One was treatment as usual, and the other a culturally sensitive motivational interviewing protocol, including a Welcome Home ceremony immediately posttreatment. The latter model supported traditional family management practices, recovery from historical trauma, and cultural restoration.

Family engagement was maximized by using motivational interviewing techniques and services that focus on parental monitoring, peer clustering, and cultural relevance to American Indians. To determine this intervention program’s long-term impact on reducing adolescent alcohol and other drug use, 60 families were followed and assessed one year following treatment. All findings were shared with interested participating tribes in an effort to expand resources for increasing sobriety and mental health of American Indian youth.

 

Treating Antisocial Youth: Brain and Behavioral Changes
Funding period: November 1, 2002–October 31, 2005
Principal Investigator: Dr. Debra Pepler, York University, Toronto, Canada
Co-Investigator: Dr. Thomas Dishion
Funded by: National Institutes of Health, National Institute of Mental Health

This project helped develop an interdisciplinary research network to examine the neural and behavioral changes that underpin successful treatment outcomes for antisocial adolescents.