Where’s the BIPOC Blueprint for Healthy Youth Development? The Role of Scientific Omissions in Our Struggle for Science Translation and Racial Equity in the United States

Abstract

Prevention Science seeks to advance the prevention research and to translate scientific advances into the promotion of healthy development for all youth. Despite tremendous progress creating a robust evidence-base and set of translational tools, elaborations and expansions for equity are required. Our collective errors of omission as prevention researchers have left prevention practitioners and policy-makers without sufficient information to identify strategies that have been demonstrated to prevent behavioral health problems in young people who identify as Black, Indigenous, or other People of Color (BIPOC). We first describe the current shortcomings of available evidence, and then we call for individual and collective action to conceptualize equity-enhancing prevention, sample more inclusively, and improve analytic approaches such that we can truly promote the healthy development of all youth.

An Equity-Focused Assessment of Evidence-Based Parenting Intervention Research

“…Concerns have been raised about how to increase the relevance of evidence-based parenting interventions (EBPIs) for diverse populations, particularly in the United States (Doyle et al, 2023 ; Weisenmuller & Hilton, 2021 ). This paper focuses on the question “to what extent do EBPIs incorporate features of racial equity in their study designs?” While one important approach is to increase the relevance of the intervention design (e.g., culturally specific adaptations of existing programs or creating new programs for specific populations), another important consideration, and the focus of this paper, is how to ensure that the research that contributes to the evidence base is rooted in principles of racial equity (Andrews et al, 2019 ; Shapiro et al, 2024 ). This paper is written in honor of the contributions that Drs.…”