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PREVENTION RESEARCH CENTERS
Building the Scientific Research Base with Community Partners

At A Glance 2009

What is the Prevention Research Centers Program?

In 1984, Congress authorized the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to create a network of academic health centers to conduct applied public health research. CDC was selected to administer the Prevention Research Centers (PRC) Program and to provide leadership, technical assistance, and oversight.

Today, CDC supports 33 centers associated with schools of public health or medicine throughout the country. Each center conducts at least one core research project with an underserved population that has a disproportionately large burden of disease and disability. In addition to conducting core research, the centers work with partners on special interest projects (defined by CDC and other HHS agencies) and on projects funded by other sources. As a result, the PRCs’ portfolio includes hundreds of projects each year.

The PRCs involve community members, academic researchers, and public health agencies in finding innovative ways to promote health and prevent disease. The partners design, test, and disseminate strategies—often as new policies or recommended public health practices.

All centers share a common goal of addressing behaviors and environmental factors that contribute to chronic diseases such as cancer, heart disease, and diabetes. Several PRCs also address injury, infectious disease, mental health, oral health, and global health.

Some centers work with distinct populations, such as African Americans and Latinos in inner cities, Mexican Americans along the U.S.-Mexico border, American Indians in New Mexico and Oregon, residents in rural communities who live below the poverty level, and people with hearing disabilities. Other PRCs focus on youth or older adults. The PRC Program reaches 41 million people in 66 partner communities.

Through scientific rigor, collaborative partnerships, practical application, and community acceptance, the PRCs continue to find new ways to improve the nation’s quality of life.

How Does CDC Work with PRCs to Improve the Nation’s Health?

Networking for Knowledge

PRCs encourage interaction among faculty from different disciplines, thus bringing an array of expertise to each project. This blending of expertise is essential to solving complex health and psychosocial problems. Departments of education, social work, psychology, anthropology, and many others work with the schools of public health and medicine.

The PRC network also fosters collaboration among the centers. Groups of PRCs collaborate in thematic networks that address cancer prevention and control research, healthy aging, physical activity policy research, Latino health, and cardiovascular health research and translation. Because each center in a network offers a unique geographic location and community relationship, researchers can simultaneously test strategies in different settings.

The PRCs also work closely with state and local health departments, the private sector, state education agencies, and national and community organizations. Through these partnerships, promising research findings are translated into practical, cost-effective prevention programs in communities.

Gaining and Sustaining Community Trust

To encourage trust, the academic institutions and community partners that constitute the PRCs make long-term commitments and take time to build solid working relationships. Researchers strive to respect the dignity of project participants and the values of the community. As a result, communities are able to make the needed changes and sustain them over time.

These principles also are applied at the national level. A representative from each PRC community is appointed to the National Community Committee, a group of motivated and dedicated individuals who make recommendations to the PRC Program about how to ensure community collaboration. The program now offers the Partnership Trust Tool, a survey and discussion guide that helps spark dialogue and align partners’ perceptions of each other.

Training Leaders in Public Health Research

In collaboration with the Association of Schools of Public Health (ASPH), the PRCs offer 2-year fellowships for doctoral-level students of racial or ethnic minority origin. Thirty-five fellows have gained hands-on experience with projects directed by the centers and their partners. The PRCs also offer extensive continuing education for health practitioners, public health professionals, and aspiring leaders seeking challenge and growth.

PRC training includes an evidence-based public health course, a physical activity and public health course, a social marketing education program, institutes on several health topics, and workshops requested by state health departments for their staffs. PRCs also offer training in selected Latin American countries.

Future Directions

The PRC Program continues to promote dissemination of interventions. It is testing the feasibility of a Web-based dissemination tool to help practitioners put proven interventions into use.

The PRC Program continues to collaborate with other CDC divisions and public health partners such as medical institutions funded by the National Institutes of Health’s Clinical and Translational Science Awards to translate research into practice and advance the field of dissemination research. The PRCs also will work across organizational lines to cosponsor forums and other discussions of crosscutting research and research designs for complex interventions.

In 2008, CDC and an external evaluation team completed a 5-year evaluation of PRC’s community-based participatory research; organizational structure; types and goals of research; and the diversity of its training, technical assistance, and mentoring. An ASPH Blue Ribbon Panel, also convened in 2008, analyzed the program and made recommendations for its future. Findings from these assessments are being applied to enhance the rigor of PRC research and ensure accountability to stakeholders.

Prevention Research Centers: Core Projects

University of Alabama at Birmingham
Reducing the health risks and health disparities in Alabama’s underserved, rural, predominantly African American communities.

University of Arizona
Influencing policy and conducting behavioral interventions to prevent and control diabetes in multiethnic communities along the Arizona-Mexico border.

Boston University
Improving the health and well-being of Boston’s public housing residents.

University of California at Berkeley
Improving health in California’s Korean American communities.

University of California at Los Angeles
Involving parents in promoting health, reducing risk behaviors, and preventing disease among adolescents.

University of Colorado
Reducing the risk for overweight, obesity, and diabetes among children and adults in the Rocky Mountain region of Colorado.

Columbia University
Developing a tailored Web site to improve communications to promote the health of low-income minority communities.

Emory University
Reducing health disparities and preventing cancer in rural southwest Georgia.

Harvard University
Improving nutrition and physical activity among children and adolescents.

University of Illinois at Chicago
Preventing diabetes in Chicago’s low-income, underserved minority communities.

University of Iowa
Empowering community organizations in rural Iowa to improve the health and quality of life of community residents.

Johns Hopkins University
Preparing young people in Baltimore to be healthy and productive adults.

University of Kentucky
Preventing and controlling cancer among residents in rural Appalachian Kentucky.

University of Michigan
Increasing the ability of communities to reduce health disparities and improve residents’ health.

University of Minnesota
Preventing and reducing risk behaviors among teenagers and promoting healthy adolescent development.

Morehouse School of Medicine
Building the capacity of low-income, African American communities to promote health, prevent disease, and reduce health disparities.

University of New Mexico
Promoting the mental health and well-being of American Indian youth and their families.

University of Albany, SUNY
Preventing chronic diseases through community-based interventions.

University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Reducing the risk for obesity among rural, low-income, and minority women by empowering them to make healthy life changes.

University of Oklahoma
Promoting healthy lifestyles among students in Oklahoma’s public schools.

Oregon Health and Science University
Improving the health of American Indian, Alaska Native, and Native Hawaiian communities.

University of Pittsburgh
Preventing disease and promoting healthy, active lives for older adults in Pennsylvania.

University of Rochester
Promoting health and preventing disease among people who are deaf or hard-of-hearing.

Saint Louis University
Reducing risk for heart disease, stroke, and cancer among residents in medically underserved, rural areas of Missouri.

San Diego State University and University of California at San Diego
Increasing physical activity and improving health among Latinos in San Diego.

University of South Carolina
Promoting health through physical activity.

University of South Florida
Using community-based prevention marketing to improve community health.

Texas A&M Health Science Center
Preventing diabetes and other chronic diseases in underserved rural communities.

University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston
Investigating influences on children’s behavior as they age to early adulthood.

Tulane University
Improving health behaviors of New Orleans residents through neighborhood reconstruction and environmental change.

University of Washington
Sustaining physical activity among older adults.

West Virginia University
Improving health and quality of life among rural adolescents.

Yale University
Preventing or reducing chronic disease among residents of Connecticut’s economically disadvantaged cities.

Maine-Harvard Prevention Research Center

Clinicians in Maine Address Overweight in Youth

From the 1970s to the early years of 2000, the prevalence of overweight more than quadrupled among children aged 6–11 years and nearly tripled among adolescents aged 12–19 years.

In 2004, the Maine Bureau of Health, the Maine Center for Public Health, and the Harvard University PRC formed the Maine Youth Overweight Collaborative. The collaborative partnered with the Maine Chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics to use the physician’s office to address overweight in children. They developed a set of simple, low-cost tools to make it easy for clinicians to talk about excess weight with children and adolescents. The tools include weight charts, communication guidelines, and suggestions for motivating patients and their families.

Over 18 months, 12 practice teams took part in surveys and training in monitoring children’s weight and counseling children and their families using brief, focused negotiation. After the intervention, progress was assessed through chart review, surveys of practice teams and parents or caretakers, and a telephone interview of providers.

In comparing data from before and after the intervention, large and statistically significant improvements were seen in chart documentation of children’s body mass index (BMI), BMI percentile, and classification of overweight. Surveys also showed improvements in physicians’ knowledge about ideal weight, ability to identify children at risk of becoming overweight, and recognition of the importance of medically evaluating overweight children. New practice teams have been trained and the possibility of on-site training has been explored to minimize the time and cost associated with this useful training.

University of Washington Health Promotion Research Center

PEARLS (Program to Encourage Active, Rewarding, Lives for Seniors) Helps Older Adults Beat Depression

Depression affects 15%–20% of older adults and is known to profoundly compromise health and quality of life. People who are socially isolated and in frail health are especially at risk for depression. Doctors and their older patients often incorrectly assume that depression is an unavoidable consequence of aging, and many depressed older adults do not receive treatment.

The University of Washington Health Promotion Research Center (PRC) worked with the City of Seattle’s Aging and Disability Services and Senior Services (a local nonprofit group) to develop and test a program to reduce depressive symptoms among homebound, chronically ill, and frail, low-income older adults.

PEARLS helps older adults define the factors contributing to their depression and develop their own solutions. It also helps them plan pleasurable events and schedule social and physical activities. In the study phase of PEARLS, 43% of seniors who participated in the program reported less depression, and more than 33% of participants reported that they were no longer depressed.

The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration includes PEARLS on its National Registry of Evidence-Based Programs and Practices. Researchers are working to expand PEARLS’ reach and to ensure that the intervention retains the key components of the original study.

The PRC has developed a free, online implementation tool kit. Researchers at the PRC are evaluating a version of PEARLS that has been adapted for use with adults who have epilepsy.

University of California at Los Angeles: UCLA/RAND Center for Adolescent Health Promotion

Work Site Parenting Program Promotes Communication About Sexual Health Between Parents and Their Adolescents

Parents can affect the sexual health of their adolescent children. Many parents, however, report feeling embarrassed, believing that they are inadequately informed, or being unsure of what to say or how to begin when talking with adolescents, especially younger adolescents, about sexual topics.

The UCLA/RAND Center for Adolescent Health Promotion (PRC), explored bringing a health intervention to parents at their workplaces. The center developed “Talking Parents, Healthy Teens” to help parents improve communication with their adolescent children, promote healthy adolescent sexual development, and reduce adolescent sexual risk behaviors.

The intervention consists of eight, weekly lunch-hour sessions delivered at the work site to groups of about 15 parents of children in 6th–10th grades. Following formative research and three pilot tests, the center developed a curriculum to influence parents’ communication and monitoring skills, intention to talk about and monitor adolescents’ sexual behavior, and perceptions of barriers and facilitators that influence talking about sexuality. The program teaches skills, facts, and options, and offers advice on how and when to talk with children; it does not dictate to parents what their values should be or how they should feel.

At 13 work sites in southern California, 569 parents completed baseline surveys, gave permission for surveys to be administered to their adolescent children, and were randomly assigned to intervention or control groups. The average number of new sexual topics that parents and adolescents reported discussing differed significantly between intervention and control groups. Both parents and adolescents in the intervention group reported greater ability to communicate with each other about sex and more openness in communication about sex. Results have shown that public and private employers—large and small—are enthusiastic about helping parents of adolescents.

West Virginia University Prevention Research Center

N-O-T (Not On Tobacco) Program Spurs Innovative Web-Based Dissemination Tool

Public health professionals are demanding cost-effective ways to find and deliver health promotion and disease prevention programs. The PRC Program is testing the feasibility of a Web-based tool that will help public health practitioners effectively implement evidence-based programs. CDC chose to pilot this implementation tool with Not on Tobacco (N-O-T), an evidence-based youth tobacco cessation program. N-O-T was developed at the West Virginia University PRC and is packaged and disseminated by the American Lung Association. A rigorous evaluation of the N-O-T program showed that 15% of N-O-T participants quit smoking, compared with 8% of those who received a brief intervention (15 minutes of advice to quit). A Web-based tool that helps practitioners implement N-O-T could greatly expand the application and impact of this effective program.

The tool, developed by representatives from academia and the public, private, and nonprofit sectors, follows best-practice guidelines. Usability testing is being conducted to ensure that it serves all audience types. Users include potential and existing facilitators and public health professionals.

The tool will have two components. A public section explains the history of the intervention, the evidence behind it, benefits of implementing the intervention, and how to start the program. A password-protected section for facilitators contains technical assistance tools, implementation tips, discussion areas, and online evaluation forms.

If the tool proves effective and useful, other programs could benefit from a comparable Web-based dissemination tool.

Related Materials

• PRC—At A Glance 2009 (PDF–3.4Mb)
• PRC—At A Glance page 2 (PDF–653Mb)
• CDC's Prevention Research Centers Program Web site
• State and Program Examples (83K–PDF)

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Page last reviewed: March 6, 2009
Page last modified: March 6, 2009
Content source: National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion