Prevention Science最新文献

The COVID-19 pandemic and resulting mitigation measures have led to increased vulnerabilities in early child development. However, research is scarce and there are no studies on the persistence of these losses three years into the pandemic among young children. To fill in this gap, we examined census-like evaluations of school readiness carried out among preschoolers in Uruguay. The assessments were carried out among 5 cohorts of 5-year-olds: who were assessed prior to the pandemic (2018, 2019); during the pandemic (2020, 2021); and after the health emergency declaration ended in Uruguay (2022). A total of 180,984 teacher evaluations were included covering cognitive, motor and socio-emotional development, as well as attitudes toward learning. Overall, we found that scores in most spheres of child development decreased from before to during the pandemic in 2020 and 2021. In 2022, scores returned to pre-pandemic levels. Our findings suggest the recovery of developmental losses among cohorts of children in kindergarten took more than two years in a country that experienced a mild-to-moderate impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Retention of early career teachers is a critical issue in education, with burnout and self-efficacy serving as important precursors to teachers leaving the field. An integration of the PAX Good Behavior Game (GBG; Barrish et al., 1969) and MyTeachingPartner (MTP; Allen et al., 2015) was tested in a randomized controlled trial (RCT) to investigate whether the combined programs would improve long-term outcomes for early career teachers. However, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, there was a higher proportion of missing data and attrition in follow-up data collection than otherwise would have been expected. The current paper focused specifically on intervention impacts on teacher-reported burnout and self-efficacy through the COVID-19 pandemic and explored various approaches for addressing missing data as an illustrative example for other researchers who may similarly have faced missing data challenges due to the pandemic. Participants included in the original trial were N = 188 early career teachers (grades K-3) who were randomly assigned to either the intervention (i.e., GBG + MTP; n = 94 teachers) or control condition (n = 94) and provided baseline data. Specifically, teachers reported on their burnout and self-efficacy at pre-intervention (Fall), post-intervention (Spring), 1-year post intervention (in Fall and Spring), COVID Year 1 (Spring 2021), and COVID Year 2 (Spring 2022). We conducted a series of outcomes analyses under varying missing data assumptions (i.e., MCAR, MAR, NMAR). There were mixed findings (i.e., both null and beneficial) regarding GBG + MTP impacts on burnout, which varied across missing data assumptions; however, there were no GBG + MTP impacts on self-efficacy. This study may also provide insight for other researchers encountering similar challenges when analyzing follow-up data collected during the COVID-19 pandemic, as we highlight pros and cons of several different approaches for modeling missing data related to attrition due to the COVID-19 pandemic and related school closures.

Many conventional research methods employed in randomized controlled trials were not possible during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. In particular, behavioral observations are nearly universally gathered in-person. Observational methods are valued for the rich, informative data they produce in comparison to non-observational methods and are a cornerstone of parenting and family research. COVID provided the opportunity to, and indeed necessitated, the transition to fully remote observation. However, little to no studies have investigated whether remotely collected observational data are methodologically sound. This paper assesses the feasibility of remote data collection by describing the transition between in-person and fully remote observational data collection during a Sequential, Multiple Assignment, Randomized Trial (SMART) of a parenting program that took place both before and during the pandemic. Using mixed-methods data from coders, the overall quality of video-recorded data collected both before and during COVID was examined. Coder reliability over time was assessed with intraclass correlation coefficients. Results suggest that the frequency of audio problems, the severity of visual problems, and the level of administration challenges decreased after transitioning to remote data collection. Additionally, coders showed good to excellent reliability coding remotely collected data, and reliability even improved on some measured tasks. Although challenges to remote data collection exist, this study demonstrated that observational data can be collected feasibly and reliably. As observational data collection is a key method to assess parenting practices, these findings should improve researcher confidence in utilizing remote observational methods in prevention science.

The COVID-19 pandemic has led prevention researchers to increasingly use remote observational procedures given social distancing directives associated with the pandemic. However, few studies have used remote observational procedures with children and their caregivers, with scant literature describing procedures with socioeconomically, racially, and ethnically diverse families. This manuscript describes processes to pivot to remote assessment of parent and child observations in the context of a longitudinal study examining the effects of a postpartum depression preventive intervention on responsive parenting and child self-regulation. We conducted remote assessments across three timepoints-42, 48, and 54 months-with 133 low-income and racially and ethnically diverse parent-child dyads. Details are provided on remote observation preparation and setup, as well as adaptation of observational assessments. Lessons learned are shared on the use of technology, scheduling considerations, parent's role as facilitator, maintaining child engagement, and cost considerations. We demonstrated excellent inter-rater reliability between independent coders on all assessments, suggesting the quality of remote assessments was conducive for analysis. Surveys with families completing a remote assessment found that most felt it was easy to participate in remote assessments and their child had a positive experience. Most parents preferred virtual visits if given an option for future assessments. Much prevention research utilizes observational measures that are less subject to bias. Our study demonstrated that research teams can effectively and reliably pivot to remote assessment with racially and ethnically diverse, low socioeconomic families, thereby providing guidance to other prevention researchers considering similar remote assessments with diverse samples.

This study examined whether the Seoul Premarital Education Program (S-PEP) was effective when it was delivered via videoconferencing (VC) during the early COVID-19 period. S-PEP is a city-wide educational program designed to prevent marital distress by enhancing premarital readiness and relationship quality for couples. Because a randomized controlled trial was not realistic due to the pandemic, we recruited an intervention group and a no-intervention comparison group independently, who completed both the pre- and posttests. We then employed inverse probability of treatment weighting to derive two comparable groups. The weighted samples of 291 women and 228 men were analyzed separately using linear mixed models. The results showed that S-PEP via VC was effective in increasing levels of marital readiness for both women and men and in enhancing relationship confidence and satisfaction for women. Our findings suggest that VC can be a promising delivery strategy for curriculum-based group interventions for couples.

The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on recruitment has been significant, including the recruitment of pregnant individuals with behavioral health risk factors. The objective of this manuscript is to highlight our response to the methodological challenges created by the pandemic and how we leveraged technology to adapt and expand our recruitment procedures for the Health Check-up for Expectant Moms, a technology-delivered behavioral skills intervention aimed at empowering and motivating pregnant women engaging in substance use and sexual health risks (e.g., condomless sex, multiple partners) to reduce their likelihood of STIs and substance use during pregnancy. After the onset of the pandemic, we transitioned from in-person recruitment to remote clinic recruitment (e.g., by phone, text messaging, and e-mail) as well as social media campaigns via Facebook® and Instagram® with a confidential web-based screening questionnaire for our study targeting pregnant women in 27 counties of Michigan. For remote recruitment, we contacted 6238 women; 1360 completed the study screening questionnaire (mean age = 31.5; SD = 4.6), 90 were eligible, and 73 were enrolled (6% eligibility). For social media recruitment, we had 2512 completing the pre-screening questionnaire. Of these, 501 (mean age = 31.9; SD = 4.6) went on to complete the full study screening questionnaire, 25 women were eligible, and 20 were enrolled (5%). Our 5% eligibility rate from our social media campaign is on par with our remote and in-clinic recruitment methods yet took far less time (15 weeks vs. 150 weeks vs. 48 weeks, respectively). Despite study recruitment challenges related to the pandemic, remote recruitment-particularly social media-was found to be a successful approach, may have a broader reach, and a cost-effective alternative to active recruitment.

Relatively few studies have longitudinally investigated how COVID-19 has disrupted the lives and health of youth beyond the first year of the pandemic. This may be because longitudinal researchers face complex challenges in figuring out how to code time, account for changes in COVID-19 spread, and model longitudinal COVID-19-related trajectories across environmental contexts. This manuscript considers each of these three methodological issues by modeling trajectories of COVID-19 disruption in 1080 youth from 12 cultural groups in nine nations between March 2020-July 2022 using multilevel modeling. Our findings suggest that for studies that attempt to examine cross-cultural longitudinal trajectories during COVID-19, starting such trajectories on March 11, 2020, measuring disruption along 6-month time intervals, capturing COVID-19 spread using death rates and the COVID-19 Health and Containment Index scores, and using modeling methods that combine etic and emic approaches are each especially useful. In offering these suggestions, we hope to start methodological dialogues among longitudinal researchers that ultimately result in the proliferation of research on the longitudinal impacts of COVID-19 that the world so badly needs.

The COVID-19 Stressors Scale measures individuals' appraisals of stressors related to the pandemic. Measurement of perceptions of stressors is necessary to understand the socioemotional impacts of not only the COVID-19 pandemic, but other disasters. The study examined the factor structure of the scale among adults in the U.S. over six time points. A shortened version was used, and the fit was examined over time. The results of the study show contextual appraisals change over time and offer important implications for the measurement of stressfulness of disasters, a critical step in designing and assessing impacts of social programs aimed to reduce the deleterious effects of disasters.

School-based surveys of adolescents can be logistically difficult and exclude students who do not attend school. Social media recruitment could be a promising strategy to recruit representative samples of adolescents. However, few studies have compared adolescent survey data collected via different methodologies. Our team was conducting a school-based survey when the COVID-19 pandemic closed all schools, necessitating a shift to online adolescent recruitment. To achieve our goal of obtaining a sample of high school students throughout California, we placed ads on social media. We compared the adolescents recruited in schools with those recruited on social media on demographic characteristics, mental health, and substance use. The sample of students recruited in schools (N = 737) and adolescents recruited via social media (N = 953) did not differ significantly on gender or substance use. However, compared with school-based recruitment, social media recruitment yielded a higher proportion of boys, whites, and Asians and a lower proportion of girls, Hispanic/Latinx adolescents, and those who spoke other languages at home. The social media sample had significantly higher levels of depression and anxiety symptoms and perceived stress than the school-based sample. Results indicate that social media can be useful for recruiting adolescents for survey research, especially if strategies such as Spanish-language social media ads are used to recruit and consent Hispanic/Latinx adolescents and those with non-English-speaking parents. This method could potentially replace school-based surveys in cases where schools are unwilling to participate in research, or it could be used to supplement school-based samples. Advantages and disadvantages of both methods are discussed.

This paper serves as an introduction for a special issue of Prevention Science: "Innovations and Strategies for Addressing COVID-19 Pandemic Related Challenges in Prevention Science Research in Applied Settings." This collection of original papers came together through an open call for original submissions to address emerging issues following the COVID-19 pandemic and related impacts on prevention science research. These papers are organized into four broad themes related to COVID-related impacts on (a) data collection, (b) measurement and missingness, (c) implementation supports and delivery considerations, and (d) broader pandemic impacts. The special issue concludes with a commentary focused on measurement and methodological considerations in analyzing data impacted by COVID-related disruptions. This set of papers provides insights for prevention science scholars and practitioners, illustrates lessons learned for managing pandemic-related data collection and design challenges, and highlights innovations in online data collection.