Creating Nurturing Environments: A Science-Based Framework for Promoting Child Health and Development Within High-Poverty Neighborhoods

Abstract

Living in poverty and living in areas of concentrated poverty pose multiple risks for child development and for overall health and wellbeing. Poverty is a major risk factor for several mental, emotional, and behavioral disorders, as well as for other developmental challenges and physical health problems. In this paper, the Promise Neighborhoods Research Consortium describes a science-based framework for the promotion of child health and development within distressed high-poverty neighborhoods. We lay out a model of child and adolescent developmental outcomes, and integrate knowledge of potent and malleable influences to define a comprehensive intervention framework to bring about a significant increase in the proportion of young people in high-poverty neighborhoods who will develop successfully. Based on a synthesis of research from diverse fields, we designed the Creating Nurturing Environments framework to guide community-wide efforts to improve child outcomes and reduce health and educational inequalities.

Marketing Behavior Analysis Requires (Really) Different Talk: A Critique of Kohn (2005) and a(Nother) call to Arms

“…One means by which behavior analysis may be viewed more positively by psychological scientists is to increase our role in interdisciplinary inquiry, broadly defined. There are at least three relevant tactics: (a) present the power of behavioral principles and philosophy in a broader way (e.g., DeGrandpre, 2000), (b) highlight better our research accomplishments that bear directly on the socially significant topics of interest in other research areas (e.g., Hayes et al, 2001;Heal & Hanley, 2007;Tiger et al, 2006), and (c) directly collaborate with these other researchers (e.g., Biglan, Brennan, Foster, & Holder, 2004;Biglan & Hinds, 2009;Komro, Flay, & Biglan, 2011).…”

“…The work of Biglan and his colleagues (e.g., Biglan et al, 2004;Biglan & Hinds, 2009;Komro et al, 2011) exemplifies the synthesis of behavior-analytic research and theorizing with other psychological approaches in addressing many key issues in child and adolescent development. Their framework for creating nurturing environments (e.g., Komro et al, 2011) incorporating such a wide range of environmental factors (e.g., family, school, and social influences) and outcome variables (cognitive, social/emotional, behavioral, and health) illustrates the weaknesses in Kohn.…”

“…Their framework for creating nurturing environments (e.g., Komro et al, 2011) incorporating such a wide range of environmental factors (e.g., family, school, and social influences) and outcome variables (cognitive, social/emotional, behavioral, and health) illustrates the weaknesses in Kohn. Not only is behavior analysis not impotent in addressing socially significant environment-behavior relations, the investigation and improvement of such relations define our mission.…”

Research design issues for evaluating complex multicomponent interventions in neighborhoods and communities

“…Most health outcomes have Bmultiple interacting influences crossing socio-ecological levels^and require complex, multi-level strategies to foster health and well-being [4] To illustrate the need for multi-level strategies for child health promotion, we created a causal model to guide community transformation efforts [5]. We first identified the major cognitive, behavioral, social, and health outcomes at each phase of child development and specified the major proximal and distal influences on each of these outcomes.…”

“…These experimental methods will enable continuous quality improvement to ensure that neighborhood and community change efforts become increasingly effective and sustained over time. The methods are appropriate and applicable for research stages T3-T5 nationally and globally.Most health outcomes have Bmultiple interacting influences crossing socio-ecological levels^and require complex, multi-level strategies to foster health and well-being [4] To illustrate the need for multi-level strategies for child health promotion, we created a causal model to guide community transformation efforts [5]. We first identified the major cognitive, behavioral, social, and health outcomes at each phase of child development and specified the major proximal and distal influences on each of these outcomes.…”