Awards : Research Consortium on Children and Families (RCCF)

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Congratulations to Dr. Suzi Baxter, Institute for Families in Society, for being recognized as the 2012 Outstanding Dietitian of the Year by the S.C. Dietetic Association at it's annual meeting in Charleston, S.C.

USC assistant professor of psychology and Research Consortium for Children and Families member Kate Flory thinks the disappointing results from social skills treatment programs for ADHD children stem from a fundamental lack of knowledge. She’s the principal investigator for a new $1.5 million U.S. Department of Education grant aimed at better understanding the relationship between ADHD symptoms and social and academic functioning.

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Dr. DeHart has been invited to join the editorial board of the Journal of Criminology. The Journal of Criminology is a peer-reviewed community journal that publishes original research articles in all areas of criminology. The journal, by the nature of its collaborative editorial model, is deeply rooted in the communities served.

Dr. DeHarthas been invited to serve on the editorial board of the Journal of Family Violence. The interdisciplinary journal has an impact factor of 0.949 and publishes articles spanning clinical and counseling psychology, sociology, psychiatry, public health, criminology, law, marital counseling, and social work. Editorial board members include research such as Ann Burgess, Donald Dutton, Edward Gandolf, Kevin Hamberger, and Daniel O'Leary.

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Dr. Arlene Andrews has been selected by the SC Governor's Office to receive the 2012 USDHHS Administration on Children, Youth, and Families Commissioner's Award.

This prestigious award honors one person from each state for making an exceptional contribution to the prevention and treatment of child abuse and neglect in his/her state. Dr. Andrews received her award during the 18th National Conference on Child Abuse and Neglect in Washington SC on April 18, 2012.

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Child research at USC hits record $18 million. Faculty members in the campus-wide Research Consortium on Children and Families (RCCF) garnered $18.1 million in external grant funding for fiscal 2011, a 28 percent increase over the prior year and a four-fold rise since the RCCF's inception in 2002.

The RCCF is composed of 66 faculty located in 8 colleges and schools as well as several centers and institutes. Research funding comes from a number of external sources, such as the National Institutes of Health, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the National Science Foundation, and a number of private foundations.

The child research covers a broad variety of topics related to child well-being and poverty, the promotion of achievement and social adjustment, autism, the prevention of child abuse, youth substance abuse, genetic factors in child development, childhood obesity, and health problems like asthma sickle cell anemia.

In addition to conducting internationally recognized research, the RCCF provides guidance to policymakers at the state and national levels, hosts renowned speakers, assists in interdisciplinary collaboration and mentors early-career scientists.

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Arnold School of Public Health researchers have launched a study to better understand the problem of childhood hunger and advance a federal initiative to solve the problem by 2015.

The study is funded by a $550,000 grant from the USDA Food and Nutrition Service, said Dr. Sonya Jones, deputy director of Arnold School's Center for Research in Nutrition and Health Disparities and principal investigator of the study.

Other University of South Carolina researchers will include Drs. Angela Liese, Christine Blake and Jan Probst, all from the Arnold School, Dr. Darcy Freedman of the College of Social Work, and Dr. Bethany Bell of the College of Education.

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RCCF members Suzanne McDermott (PI) and Josh Mann (Co-PI) have recently been awarded CDC funding in the amount of $1.17 million to conduct research: South Carolina Study on Adolescents and Young Adults with Rare Conditions.

The project will focus on the health and welfare of adolescents and young adults with rare conditions using both a cross-sectional (a single point in time) and a longitudinal design (looking at people over an extended time period). The study group will be 15-24 year olds with spina bifida, muscular dystrophy and fragile X syndrome and we will use linked administrative datasets (such as Medicaid, State Department of Education, and Vocational Rehabilitation) to describe the well-being and service use of the study group. We will estimate the prevalence of these conditions, their health status, educational, and employment participation. We will estimate the age specific prevalence for each condition and describe the occurrence of other acute and chronic medical conditions, including diabetes mellitus, obesity, heart disease, respiratory disease and other conditions. We will also describe the incidence and prevalence of co-morbid and secondary conditions and the co-occurrence of intellectual disability, paralysis, epilepsy, and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. We will also describe the frequency and type of health care received by each group, including rates of hospitalization, emergency department visits, and outpatient services, and the cost-effectiveness of different approaches to care. In the second and third year of the grant we will interview 125-175 affected individuals and their families to describe their living situation, education, employment, and other markers of social participation, using the questionnaires from the National Longitudinal Transition Study and the RAND 36. We will describe the transition that occurs as adolescents with each condition mature into young adulthood, in terms of health care and social services (including type and specialty of health care provider by specialty, physical and occupational therapy, speech/language therapy, counseling and other services). Finally, we plan to assess the ability of other states to conduct the linked administrative data analyses and make recommendations that will be generalizable to other states.

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Dr. DeHart is Co-PI on a $786,470 Office of Juvenile Justice & Delinquency Prevention project with Dr. Gregg Dwyer of the Medical University of South Carolina.

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Dr. Jane Roberts, a member of the RCCF and a faculty member in the Department of Psychology, is making a big splash here at USC with her research on Autism.

Autism is a major public health concern that affects the state of South Carolina and our nation. With an estimated prevalence of autism cited as 1:110 and a cost of $35 billion per year, the early detection of autism in high risk infants is critical to these children, their families and the systems that support them. The over-arching aim of this study is to expand information on the biological pathways and timing of symptom emergence in infants at high risk for autism to facilitate targeted treatments and refinement of the phenotype. This 5-year study is funded by the National Institute of Mental Health for $1,790,000 in total award funds.

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RCCF Executive Committee Member, Robert McKeown, receives TWO National Honors

Dr. Robert McKeown, chair of the Arnold School’s Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, will become president-elect of the American College of Epidemiology (ACE). He will begin that office in September.

In November, McKeown will receive the prestigious Abraham Lilienfeld Award from the Epidemiology Section of the American Public Health Association (APHA).

McKeown received word of both major career achievements on the same day, said Dean Tom Chandler who congratulated his colleague "on receiving such a high level of national recognition for a productive and meaningful career in public health."

The APHA Epidemiology Section Lilienfeld Award recognizes excellence in the teaching of epidemiology during the course of a career. It is given in memory of Dr. Abraham Lilienfeld, an outstanding teacher, scholar and former chair of the epidemiology department at the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health. Lilienfeld was one of the most influential figures in the development of epidemiology as a profession in the mid-20th century. He influenced the careers of many leading epidemiologic researchers. Past recipients of this award include some of the most highly respected epidemiologists of the last two decades.

“I was shocked when the first call came. Dumbfounded with the second. As great an honor as the Lilienfeld Award is, even more meaningful is the fact that one current and one former student gave their time and effort to make the nomination,” McKeown said.

“I am touched by their action and what it means and by the many notes from friends and colleagues I’ve received since the announcement,” he said. “The greatest pride I feel is not in any particular thing I’ve done, but in the accomplishments of so many of my former students who have gone on to do far more than anything I ever taught them.”

Lilienfeld also was instrumental in the founding of ACE in 1979, so his legacy is attached to both of the honors that McKeown has received.

McKeown is a Fellow of ACE, former chair of its Ethics Committee, and a recent member of its Board of Directors. ACE is a credential-based organization with a primary focus on promoting excellence in the practice of epidemiology. ACE sponsors professional development activities, advocates for epidemiologists and for policies critical to public health and to epidemiologic research and practice, and promotes the ethical values, principles, and obligations common to epidemiologists across diverse professional settings.

Regarding his election, McKeown said, “It is gratifying and encouraging that my colleagues from across the United States and in other countries have given this vote of confidence. Over years of involvement on committees and the Board of Directors, I have come to appreciate the rich diversity of talent ACE represents and the wide range of settings in which epidemiologists are making a difference in the health of people.”

“This organization is uniquely suited to supporting, enhancing, and extending that work. As pleased as I am, it is also scary to face the challenge of leading a national organization with such a rich, if relatively short, history,” McKeown said. “I am heartened that the membership has asked me to work with them to continue that tradition. I am humbled and more than a little anxious, but also enormously grateful for this opportunity. ”

The National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute of the National Institutes of Health recently awarded Suzi Baxter a four-year, $2.7 million R01 grant for her research project titled “Children's Dietary Recalls: Prompts, Retention Interval, and Accuracy.” The relationship between diet and disease is a critical one in public health, but dietary assessment is challenging, especially among school children. As parents are not present everywhere children eat meals (e.g., at school), many studies and surveys must rely on elementary school children in upper-grade levels to self-report dietary intake. Although accuracy of children's dietary recalls is problematic, research has shown that it can be improved by aspects under direct control of investigators and practitioners. The R01 grant will compare crucial yet untested aspects of commonly-used protocols for obtaining 24-hour dietary recalls from fourth-grade children. Results from this research will provide empirical evidence for refining software to obtain more accurate 24-hour dietary recalls from children for epidemiologic studies, interventions, and clinical practice, and thereby lead to improved understanding of relationships between diet and disease. Co-Investigators on this grant are James Hardin (Associate Research Professor in the Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics and Director of the Biostatistics Collaborative Unit for Health Sciences) and Dawn Wilson (Professor in the Department of Psychology). The R01 application included results from a pilot study that was funded in part by the Research Consortium on Children and Families (RCCF). The RCCF is a multidisciplinary University endeavor drawing together faculty from behavioral/social sciences and closely related disciplines who conduct grant-funded research related to children/youth and their families. Baxter, Hardin, and Wilson are all members of RCCF.

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