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"Bullying - long tolerated as just a part of growing up - finally has been recognized as a substantial and preventable health problem. Bullying is associated with anxiety, depression, poor school performance, and future delinquent behavior among its targets, and reports regularly surface of youth who have committed suicide at least in part because of intolerable bullying. Bullying also can have harmful effects on children who bully, on bystanders, on school climates, and on society at large. Bullying can occur at all ages, from before elementary school to after high school. It can take the form of physical violence, verbal attacks, social isolation, spreading rumors, or cyberbullying. Increased concern about bullying has led 49 states and the District of Columbia to enact anti-bullying legislation since 1999. In addition, research on the causes, consequences, and prevention of bullying has expanded greatly in recent decades. However, major gaps still exist in the understanding of bullying and of interventions that can prevent or mitigate the effects of bullying. Building Capacity to Reduce Bullying is the summary of a workshop convened by the Board on Children, Youth, and Families of the Institute of Medicine and National Research Council in April 2014 to identify the conceptual models and interventions that have proven effective in decreasing bullying, examine models that could increase protective factors and mitigate the negative effects of bullying, and explore the appropriate roles of different groups in preventing bullying. This report reviews research on bullying prevention and intervention efforts as well as efforts in related areas of research and practice, implemented in a range of contexts and settings, including schools, peers, families, communities, laws and public policies, and technology. Building Capacity to Reduce Bullying considers how involvement or lack of involvement by these sectors influences opportunities for bullying, and appropriate roles for these sectors in preventing bullying. This report highlights current research on bullying prevention, considers what works and what does not work, and derives lessons learned."--Publisher's description.

"Demographic changes, immigration, economic upheavals, and changing societal mores are creating new and altered structures, processes, and relationships in American families today. As families undergo rapid change, family science is at the brink of a new and exciting integration across methods, disciplines, and epistemological perspectives. The purpose of The Science of Research on Families: A Workshop, held in Washington, DC, on July 13-14, 2010, was to examine the broad array of methodologies used to understand the impact of families on children's health and development. It sought to explore individual disciplinary contributions and the ways in which different methodologies and disciplinary perspectives could be combined in the study of families. Toward an Integrated Science of Research on Families documents the information presented in the workshop presentations and discussions. The report explores the idea of family research as being both basic and applied, offering opportunities for learning as well as intervention. It discusses research as being most useful when organized around particular problems, such as obesity or injury prevention. Toward an Integrated Science of Research on Families offers a problem-oriented approach that can guide a broad-based research program that extends across funders, institutions, and scientific disciplines."--Publisher's description.

Benefit-cost analyses hold great promise for influencing policies related to children, youth, and families. By comparing the costs of preventive interventions with the long-term benefits of those interventions, benefit-cost analysis provides a tool for determining what kinds of investments have the greatest potential to reduce the physical, mental, and behavioral health problems of young people. More generally, the growth of benefit-cost analysis as a field of research and practice represents an exciting and promising trend in the development and implementation of public policies. The utility of benefit-cost analyses has been limited by a lack of uniformity in the methods and assumptions underlying these studies. For years, those who perform and those who use benefit-cost analyses have argued that the development and use of theoretical, technical, and reporting standards for benefit-cost analyses would enhance the validity of results, increase comparability across studies, and accelerate the progress of the field. Considerations in Applying Benefit-Cost Analysis to Preventive Interventions for Children, Youth, and Families is the summary of a workshop convened by the Board on Children, Youth, and Families of the Institute of Medicine and the National Research Council in November 2013 as the first phase of a possible two-part effort directed toward guiding future benefit-cost studies and enhancing the relevance of benefit-cost analysis to governments and other organizations wanting to make sound prevention decisions. The workshop brought together leading practitioners in the field, researchers who study the methodological and analytic dimensions of benefit-cost analysis, and representatives of organizations that use the results of benefit-cost analyses to shape and implement public policies. This report discusses a wide range of issues about benefit-cost analysis, including the level of research rigor that should be met before results from an evaluation are used to estimate or predict outcomes in a cost-benefit analysis; best practices and methodologies for costing prevention interventions; prevention outcomes that currently lend themselves to monetization; processes and methodologies that should be used when linking prevention outcomes to avoided costs or increased revenues; and best methods for handling risk and uncertainty in estimates

Intro -- Acknowledgments -- Contents -- Executive Summary -- Setting the Stage -- PART I Promoting Adolescent Development -- Adolescent Development -- Personal and Social Assets That Promote Well-Being -- Features of Positive Developmental Settings -- PART II The Role of Community Programs for Youth -- The Landscape of Community Programs for Youth -- Lessons from Experimental Evaluations -- PART III Evaluation and Social Indicator Data -- Generating New Information -- Data and Technical Assistance Resources -- PART IV The Intersection of Practice, Policy, and Research -- Funding and Support for Programs -- Conclusions and Recommendations -- APPENDIX A Fundamental Principles of Human Development -- APPENDIX B Theoretical Frameworks for Conceptualizing Positive Developmental Processes -- APPENDIX C Biographical Sketches -- APPENDIX D Related Reports from the National Academies -- References -- Index.

"The National Children's Study (NCS) was authorized by the Children's Health Act of 2000 and is being implemented by a dedicated Program Office in the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD). The NCS is planned to be a longitudinal observational birth cohort study to evaluate the effects of chronic and intermittent exposures on child health and development in the U.S.. The NCS would be the first study to collect a broad range of environmental exposure measures for a national probability sample of about 100,000 children, followed from birth or before birth to age 21. Detailed plans for the NCS were developed by 2007 and reviewed by a National Research Council / Institute of Medicine panel. At that time, sample recruitment for the NCS Main Study was scheduled to begin in 2009 and to be completed within about 5 years. However, results from the initial seven pilot locations, which recruited sample cases in 2009-2010, indicated that the proposed household-based recruitment approach would be more costly and time consuming than planned. In response, the Program Office implemented a number of pilot tests in 2011 to evaluate alternative recruitment methods and pilot testing continues to date. At the request of Congress, The National Children's Study 2014 reviews the revised study design and proposed methodologies for the NCS Main Study. This report assesses the study's plan to determine whether it is likely to produce scientifically sound results that are generalizable to the United States population and appropriate subpopulations. The report makes recommendations about the overall study framework, sample design, timing, content and need for scientific expertise and oversight. The National Children's Study has the potential to add immeasurably to scientific knowledge about the impact of environmental exposures, broadly defined, on children's health and development in the United States. The recommendations of this report will help the NCS will achieve its intended objective to examine the effects of environmental influences on the health and development of American children"--Publisher's description

"This report summarizes a joint workshop convened by the Institute of Medicine and National Research Council with Fundacao Maria Cecilia Souto Vidigal in November 2014 in Sao Paulo, Brazil. The workshop presentations and discussions highlighted efforts made to scale program investments across health, education, nutrition, and social protection that aim to improve children's developmental potential. Speakers explored four topics around scaling up program investments: impact, scalability, sustainability, and governance. Participants shared their experiences scaling up programs and implementing early childhood services into a comprehensive national policy. Scaling Program Investments for Young Children Globally synthesizes up-to-date evidence on effective programs and interventions in Latin America and other regions, including an account of their strengths and challenges. This report highlights the presentations and discussions of the event."--Publisher's description