Other Collaborations

Healthy Child Weight through Improved Parenting Practices and Environmental Change

Dianne Ward, PI
Deborah J. Jones, Co-Investigator

Although expert panels and research studies have underscored the role of the family in child overweight, very few family-based programs exist to prevent obesity and even fewer have been implemented with preschool children, a critical period for establishing behaviors associated with lifelong trajectories of healthy weight.  This project aims to develop and test the efficacy of an innovative, cross-disciplinary intervention that focuses on enhancing the parenting skills of mothers with young children. The intervention is designed to help mothers implement more effective parenting behaviors and reduce their parenting-related stress, while also creating a home environment that supports the development of healthy weight practices in their preschool children. This innovative approach has not previously been tested.

The project is funded by the National Institute of Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (R01 HL091093)

Families First Study

Andrea Hussong, PI
Deborah J. Jones, Co-Investigator

Families First is an evolving research program lead by  Dr. Andrea Husson, in collaboration with myself, Dr. Don Baucom, and Dr. Gabriela Stein as well as additional students and fellows.  The goal of the project is the develop a prevention program for preschool aged children of alcoholic parents and their families. Children of alcoholic parents (COAs) are at risk for a wide variety of negative outcomes.  These include mental health problems such as greater internalizing and externalizing symptoms that are evident as early as 2-3 years of age and remain elevated, relative to children of non-alcoholic parents, into adulthood.  Moreover, COAs show higher rates of school-related problems, lower rates of social competence and, most notably, substantially greater risk for alcohol and drug disorders in young adulthood. Not surprisingly, these elevated rates of disturbance make COAs a high-service utilization population, with COAs over-represented in welfare, mental health and special education services. Despite this clear need, few prevention programs target COAs.  Evidence from studies by Dr. Hussong and her colleagues indicate that COAs begin to evidence elevated internalizing and externalizing symptoms as early as age 2, with risk for mental health outcomes remaining high and stable into adulthood.  To date, no prevention programs have been developed and empirically evaluated to determine whether interventions in the preschool-period can effectively mitigate COAs’ risk.  For these reasons, we are currently working on the early phases of  development for an early preventive intervention program for preschool-aged COAs and their families.