Contact: Diana Strand, Phone 541-485-2711
WASHINGTON, DC – For the second year, OSLC Research Scientists Dr.’s J. Mark Eddy and Charles Martinez, Jr. chaired the Sloboda and Bukoski Society for Prevention Research (SPR) Cup Competition, held at the annual meeting last week. Teams of early career prevention scientists competed for the honor of winning the traveling cup, named for two of the founders of SPR, Dr. Zili Sloboda and Dr. Bill Bukoski. Teams applied last fall, and three teams were accepted to compete: the Standard Deviations from Claremont Graduate University; Team Violence Prevention, with members from the University of New Hampshire, the University of California at Davis, the University of California at Irvine, the University of California at Riverside, and Texas Tech University; and the Prevention Geeks, from the State of Oklahoma Department of Mental Health and Substance Abuse Services. Two months before the meeting, teams were given a data set, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention-sponsored National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey from 2003-2004. Their task was to choose variables of interest, conduct a literature review, develop hypotheses, conduct analyses, and create a 15-minute presentation. After each presentation, a panel of eight judges and audience members rated the quality of the work of the team and their presentation style. The team with the highest total rating was the Prevention Geeks, whose members examined the relationships among marital status, sex, and age and binge drinking across the lifespan. Team member Ms. Andrea LaFazia accepted the Cup from the captain of last year’s winning team, Dr. Michelle Little from the Prevention Research Center at Arizona State University. The Prevention Geeks were invited by the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) to present at an upcoming director’s seminar in Washington, D.C. The Prevention Geeks also were invited to submit a manuscript to SPR’s flagship journal, Prevention Science. If submitted, the manuscript will undergo the regular peer review process. Next year, a representative of the winning team will return to the SPR Annual Meeting in San Francisco to pass the Cup on to the 2008 winning team.