[PDRP Roster]

The Psychosocial Development, Risk, and Prevention [PDRP] Study Section reviews applications that focus on the identification of risk and protective factors, processes and models and design and testing of intra- and inter-personal preventive interventions related to social development across the life span. Social contexts of interest include family relationships, intimate partner and marital relationships, social networks, peer groups, schools, and workplace settings. Research designs and methods may use quantitative or qualitative approaches. Research on risk and protective factors and preventive interventions may be focused on alcohol, tobacco, and drug abuse; violence, abuse and anti-social behavior; unintended injury; psychopathology; high-risk sexual behavior; unintended pregnancy; academic underachievement; and other negative outcomes and co-morbid conditions.

Specific areas covered by PDRP:

• Interpersonal and contextual processes leading to or protecting from negative developmental outcomes across the life span; studies examining the interaction between social and interpersonal risk factors and individual differences in susceptibility to adverse outcomes; risk-taking and risk-avoiding behaviors.
  
  
• Intrapersonal interventions: Social skills, coping skills, emotion regulation strategies and social competency training; academic tutorials; psychopharmacologic, cognitive-behavioral, and other psychotherapeutic approaches designed to assist at-risk individuals or subsets of the population, including prevention of secondary conditions and disorders.
  
  
• Interpersonal interventions: Marital and/or family interventions, management, or resource development; parenting skills training and peer relations; school-based interventions, teacher/student skill development; resistance skills training; social norm development and change; communication skills for the general population [e.g., all children in a school], at-risk individuals [e.g., children of drug-using or abusive parents], and high-risk groups [e.g., those already exhibiting predictive symptoms of disorder or condition], including prevention of secondary conditions and disorders.
  
  
• Social development and interpersonal processes: Parent-child, sibling, marital, intimate partner relationships and the processes involved in formation, dissolution, satisfaction, and distress; caregiving relationships; attachment models and the development and maintenance of relationships; friendship, peer relations, and social support; influence of parental and marital interaction on children and other members of the family; intergenerational relationships; social competence, aggression, social withdrawal and isolation.
  
  
• Domestic violence; child abuse; neglect; sexual assault; victimization [e.g., fear of bullying]; peer aggression; elder abuse; school and workplace violence; relation to drugs and alcohol, psychopathology, and physical condition.
  
  
• Prevention methodology: Studies that examine the issues of structure, content, and delivery associated with successful preventive interventions including: developmental timing, measurement, recruitment and retention, booster, durability of effects, adaptability, intervention fidelity, delivery channels, and mediational processes.
  

PDRP has the following shared interests within the RPHB IRG:

• With Social Psychology, Personality and Interpersonal Processes [SPIP]: Studies focused on personality or social cognitive mechanisms and processes in interpersonal settings that do not reflect a development focus could be assigned to SPIP.
  
  
• With Risk, Prevention and Intervention for Addictions [RPIA]: Studies of psychosocial risk and interventions that address a wide array of risk behaviors, of which addiction is only one, may be reviewed by PDRP. Applications that address multiple risk behaviors with a primary interest in addictions may be reviewed in RPIA.
  
  
• With Behavioral Medicine Interventions and Outcomes [BMIO]: Studies of risk and interventions that primarily affect social or psychological development could be assigned to PDRP as could preventive interventions for physical diseases and disorders. Studies focused on adaptive or maladaptive social development and include assessment of social cognitive strategies, individual differences in personality, or motivation could also be assigned to PDRP as could applications using social cognitive strategies as a target of preventive interventions. Studies of risk and interventions for disabling or cognitive impairment, or studies of caregivers of people with disabling or cognitive impairments, could be assigned to BMIO.
  

PDRP has the following shared interests outside the RPHB IRG: 

• With the Health of the Population [HOP] IRG: Applications that include basic behavioral research and interventions to change health behavior at the community, institutional or population levels could be referred to the HOP IRG, including epidemiological studies and those that address clinical nursing practice related to the care of persons, that have an emphasis on nursing science, or that emphasize the organization of health service delivery. Applications with a developmental focus that are designed to affect health risk behaviors by changing the knowledge, skills, attitudes, motivation or behavior of individuals or small groups could be assigned to PDRP.
  
  
• With the Biobehavioral and Behavioral Processes [BBBP] IRG: The PDRP study section shares an interest in developmental and behavioral disorders with the BBBP IRG. Applications focused on treatment and interventions for existing developmental disorders and disability or on particular disorders in children or adolescents could be assigned to the BBBP IRG. Applications to study or develop preventive interventions targeting interpersonal processes or that focus on understanding risk and protective factors could be assigned to PDRP.