Professor Daphna Oyserman teaching a course on Prevention Research, February 2005
What is the aim of prevention? Preventive interventions aim to promote well-being while reducing risk of a variety of negative life outcomes, with particular focus on mental health. Signs of well-being include life satisfaction, appropriate achievement of developmental milestones (such as developing social skills, completing school) and attainment of normative adult social functioning (establishment of a family, community engagement, career attainment, financial security). Signs of mental health problems include symptoms of anxiety or depression. For children and youth, these signs include ‘acting out,’ ‘externalizing,’ or ‘deviant/delinquent’ behavior, and for older teens and adults these signs include substance abuse, diagnosed psychiatric disorders, and self-report or observation of difficulties in community functioning. Interventions can be universal (promoting well-being and reducing risk for all), selected (promoting well-being and reducing risk for sub-groups already at risk), or indicated (promoting well-being and reducing risk for sub-groups already exhibiting some signs of problematic outcomes).
What is prevention research? Prevention researchers work on: (1) developing testable process models pointing to factors that if manipulated, can promote well-being and reduce risk, (2) developing interventions targeted at those points in the process model where change is possible. Prevention research combines an interest in basic topics in psychology and sociology with an interest in creating change.
Basic social psychological processes (e.g., situational influences on attitudes, cognition, judgment, stereotyping, self-concept and identity) and developmental psychological processes (e.g. family processes and life transitions; social, cognitive, and emotional development; developmental psychopathology) can be studied both in traditional experimental or correlational designs and in field experiments with the goal of developing a process model of antecedents of well-being (or problematic outcomes) which can be translated into a testable intervention aimed at promoting well-being and reducing likelihood of problematic outcomes (e.g. depression, school failure).
In the same way, basic sociological processes (e.g. social structure, social institutions, social categories and their consequences for social disparities in health, well-being and other life outcomes) can be studied with a goal of either developing process models of antecedents of well-being and mental illness, or of developing testable interventions to promote well-being and reduce risk.
What is the current training opportunity? NIMH has funded the Michigan Prevention Research Training Program to train future prevention researchers who will become conversant in structural, socio-cultural and racial factors influencing well-being and mental health and will become able to translate basic science into testable interventions, programs and policies aimed at promoting well-being and reducing problems across the lifespan. Trainees will obtain a doctoral degree in Social Psychology, Developmental Psychology, Sociology, or the Joint Program in Social Work and the Social Sciences with a focus on prevention. During the course of training, students will have the opportunity to develop and test their own theories about antecedents of well-being (or problem behaviors).
In addition to completing required coursework toward a doctoral degree, major elements of the training program are a 4-semester training seminar sequence and a two-year prevention research apprenticeship with a faculty member. As part of the training program, students will develop a publishable prevention research study and learn to write grant applications. Training support will be provided for 4 academic years for each trainee, with the academic fifth year funded through a teaching requirement.
