Media Room: News Releases
2011 News Releases
Local Research Scientist Honored with
International Prevention Science Award
Posted June 2, 2011
Contact: Leslie Leve (lesliel@oslc.org) or Debbie Wetherald (debbiew@oslc.org); 541-485-2711
Eugene, OR– Oregon Social Learning Center (OSLC) is pleased to announce that our Science Director, Leslie Leve, Ph.D. is the 2011 recipient of the Prevention Science Award given to her by the Society for Prevention Research (SPR). She was selected for her outstanding contributions to advancing the field of prevention science. The award will be given at the annual SPR Conference this week in Washington, D.C. and is awarded annually to an individual or team of individuals for outstanding work in developing and testing prevention strategies.
The Society for Prevention Research, in its 20th year, is a multi-disciplinary, international membership of scientists, practitioners, advocates, administrators, and policy makers working to enhance dissemination of prevention research to promote health and well-being globally.
Dr. Leve is interested in the origins of child adjustment and mental health problems, with a focus on understanding family influences on child and adolescent development using a combination of intervention studies aimed at testing prevention effects, and adoption studies aimed at examining the interplay between genetic and family environmental influences on child well being.
Leve currently directs the Early Growth and Development Study-Phase I project, a prospective adoption study of birth parents and adoptive families that aims to understand the interplay between family and inherited contributions to child development. She also directs a long term follow-up study of women who were involved in the juvenile justice system as adolescents, and has been a lead researcher on several other grants funded by the National Institutes of Health that include the development of interventions for families with child welfare involvement.
Local Research Scientist Appointed
Associate Editor for the Journal Prevention Science
Posted May 25, 2011
Contact: J. Mark Eddy, Ph.D., marke@oslc.org or Debbie Wetherald, debbiew@oslc.org 541-485-2711
Eugene, OR – J. Mark Eddy, senior scientist at the Oregon Social Learning Center (OSLC) has been appointed as an Associate Editor of the professional journal Prevention Science. This quarterly, peer-reviewed publication of the international Society for Prevention Research (SPR) serves to share new developments in prevention sciences which cover a wide range of areas, including health and social problems, substance abuse, mental health, HIV/AIDS, violence, accidents, teenage pregnancy, suicide, delinquency, STD's, obesity, diet/nutrition, exercise, and chronic illness.
His work and continuing contributions to SPR have helped advance the field, encourage and guide others, and establish prevention science as a rigorous discipline that attracts serious funding from both federal and private sources. He was a key organizer for the SPR Early Career Preventionists Network (ECPN), jump-starting and encouraging young scientists in the field. He was honored by the Society in 1998 with the SPR Early Career Scientist Award and again in 2009 with the SPR Friend of ECPN Award for mentoring.
Eddy, who is also a licensed clinical psychologist, is the principal investigator on several longitudinal studies of interventions for children, adolescents, and families including:
- The Family Study, a randomized controlled trial of the Relief Nursery program.
- The Parent Child Study, a randomized trial of parent management training with incarcerated parents within adult corrections
- The Child Study, a multi-site randomized controlled trial of the Friends of the Children youth mentoring program
- The Paths Project, a study of the transition into young adulthood for youth who were heavily involved with the juvenile justice system and who participated in a randomized trial of multidimensional treatment foster care
- The Linking the Interests of Families and Teachers Project, a study of the transitions into young adulthood for participants in a randomized multi-modal school-based prevention intervention program.
He also serves as a co-investigator on several OSLC Latino Research Team studies.
Marriage & Sleep Difficulties in Young Children
Posted May 10, 2011
Contact: Anne Mannering (annem@oslc.org) or Leslie Leve (lesliel@oslc.org) 541-485-2711
Today, Anne M. Mannering, an early-career scientist at Eugene’s Oregon Social Learning Center (OSLC), publishes research findings showing a relationship between marital problems and the ability of a family’s very young children (ages 9 – 18 months) to fall asleep and stay asleep successfully. “Our findings suggest that the association between marital instability and children’s sleep problems emerges earlier in development than has been demonstrated previously,” says Mannering.
The study of 357 adoptive families, in a widespread collaboration with colleagues from OSLC, University of Leicester, Cardiff University, University of Pittsburgh, University of California at Davis, Pennsylvania State University, University of New Orleans, and Yale Child Study Center,
found that marital instability – for example, contemplating divorce - when children are 9-months old predicts sleep problems when a child is 18-months-old. The researchers were interested in the idea that family stress may have an impact on how a child develops sleep patterns. Adoptive families were chosen to rule out the possible influence of shared genes on associations between the parents’ and the children’s behavior, as previous research in this area has been with biological parent/child groups. The analysis held even as the researchers took into consideration such factors as children’s difficult temperaments, parents’ anxiety levels, and birth order. Happily, they also found that the inverse is not true — children’s sleep problems did not predict marital instability.
The results suggest that parents should be aware that marital stress may impact an infant’s well-being even in the first year or two of life. Mannering notes that, "We are now investigating whether the relationship between marital instability and child sleep problems persists after age two, and the role that the parent-child relationship might play in this association."
These findings appear in the journal Child Development Vol. 82, Issue 4. The study was funded by the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, the National Institute on Drug Abuse, and the Office of the Director of the National Institutes of Health.
Posted February 10, 2010
Contact: Phil Fisher, 541-485-2711
EUGENE, Ore. -- (Jan. 21, 2010) -- Phil Fisher, a senior scientist at the Oregon Social Learning Center and a professor of psychology at the University of Oregon (UO), has accepted membership invitations to the National Scientific Council on the Developing Child and the National Forum on Early Childhood Policy and Programs (formerly the National Forum on Early Childhood Program Evaluation).
The two groups, both based at Harvard University, have leading roles in shaping science and policies in early childhood research and intervention.
Fisher, who earned his doctorate in psychology in 1993 from the UO, is known for his research on childhood trauma and foster and adopted children. He studies the impacts of stressful experiences on children and the design of treatment programs for abused and neglected children. His research examines how such stresses impact brain biology. He also serves as co-director of a National Institute of Mental Health-funded grant examining the effects of early experiences on the activity of specific hormones (glucocorticoids) in the brain.
The National Scientific Council on the Developing Child, which Fisher joins as a contributing member, was established in 2003. The council is a multi-disciplinary collaboration of scientists and scholars from universities across the United States and Canada designed to bring the science of early childhood and early brain development to bear on public policy decision-making. The council is widely known for it publication in October 2000 of "From Neurons to Neighborhoods: The Science of Early Childhood Development."
The National Forum on Early Childhood Policy and Programs, created as an initiative of the council, strives to explain why public investments should be made in the early childhood years. Fisher's initial appointment with the forum is for three years.
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