November, 2011

Japanese working mothers are best hope for growth

Japan is being urged to invest in preschool care to encourage more women to enter the labor market and rescue the nation’s economy from the worst debt ever experienced by any of the world’s wealthiest nations.

Failure makes perfect?

Everyone is keen to learn lessons from successful programs, but ones that don’t produce the expected results can be instructive, too. One parenting program in a deprived English community shows how failures lead to success.

Does Dino have the answer? Is it NOT?

How cost effectiveness analysis is helping US policy makers to find an affordable public health intervention with the power to put a dent in the shocking statistic that even in a society as intervention rich as theirs, smoking will contribute to the deaths of one in twelve of the current teenage population.

A partnership with benefits

What are the financial benefits of Nurse Family Partnership program and how are they distributed? New research offers more details.

KiVa: Bullying prevention at scale

Kiusaamista vastaan: Salmivalli tells the remarkable story of how the KiVa bullying prevention program reached 90% of Finnish schools in just five years

Incredible results for the Incredible Years

New research shows that Incredible Years can have beneficial effects among children older than those with whom it has worked so far, while using staff who are new to the program.

Prevention science down under

Is it a case of simple translation? What are the challenges faced in applying a prevention science framework, developed primarily in the US, to address children’s social and emotional difficulties in Australia?

Could peer supporters be a solution to postnatal depression?

PND is a major public health problem: it affects about 13% of women having a baby in the UK, and it often goes untreated. An upcoming study aims to test a promising new telephone support approach.

Material boys and girls

Time with family and friends tops the list of things that children say make them happy. So why are parents in the UK encouraging materialism and what is the link between that and the country’s low-wage, long-hours culture? A recent UNICEF study of child wellbeing in Sweden, the UK and Spain offers some clues.

A matter of replication

One problem for policy makers is that often there are only one or two relevant studies on which to base decisions. A new paper in the journal Prevention Science makes the case for more replication studies.

Reducing child abuse potential

New research suggests that Parent Child Interaction Therapy (PCIT) is successful at both reducing risk factors associated with child maltreatment as well as reducing notifications of abuse to child protection services.

Making wider use of what works

Present tough economic times make the greater use of effective programs uncertain, but we have much to learn from how those responsible for policy implementation are guided and act.