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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Parent training classes are key to addressing children’s behavior problems, but only a fraction of those invited to attend programs enroll, while even among those who do there is a high drop out rate. New research indicates that encouraging parents to sign up and then keep them coming may require different approaches.

The full costs of child welfare programs are notoriously difficult to calculate – making it difficult to balance the demands of short-term cost-cutting with the need for long-term effectiveness. Could a UK “Cost Calculator” be the tool US child welfare systems need to make more informed decisions?

Evidence-based programs that attempt to reduce achievement gaps between disadvantaged children and their better-off counterparts in the early years are effective, but their impact is, at best, modest. The director of Harvard’s Center on the Developing Child argues that new interventions should shift their focus – from just stimulating the minds of these children to also protecting their brains.

Effective interventions can reduce violence against women and improve the health of survivors, research shows. But when it comes to persuading policymakers to invest, is evidence on the effectiveness of interventions enough – or do we need evidence of cost effectiveness, too?

The lack of fit between evidence-based programs and service organisations (or ‘systems’) is increasingly acknowledged. How can the somewhat neglected concept of “implementation climate” help ensure implementation with quality and fidelity?

Why have crime rates dropped in Washington state – maybe more cops on the street, or a get-tough policy? Or could it be that the painstaking cost-benefit analysis by the Washington State Institute for Public Policy (WSIPP) is helping legislators make decisions that reduce crime and save taxpayers money? In a new report, WSIPP’s researchers extend their approach to include crime, education, child welfare, mental health, and substance abuse.

The recent riots in England—the acts of vandalism, looting, violence and muggings—raise the question: what is our understanding of youth violence and aggression? A new study examines one aspect of this complex phenomenon: the relationship between maternal depression and aggression in adolescence.