The Institute began in 1988 and since that time has generated
approximately $69 million dollars in external funding. As an
interdisciplinary social science research center, our mission is to
facilitate state-of-the-art externally funded research that promotes the
well-being of families, especially those in rural settings. One of our
studies has followed over 550 Iowa families for 20 years; individuals whom we first
studied as 13-year–olds are now raising children of their own.
The initial impetus for the center was the
crisis in the rural economy of the 1980s, which exacerbated
health problems in rural areas at the same time that the rural
economic structure was least capable of dealing with them. Thus, the Institute began its life as the Social and
Behavioral Research Center for Rural Health. A key mission of
the original center was to conduct research and inform policy
related to health and health practices in rural Iowa. In 1997,
the State Board of Regents approved a new name and the
transition was made from a research center to the Institute for Social
and Behavioral Research. The name change reflected the
expanding mission and scope of activities undertaken by
Institute scientists.
Two programs of research have been
influential in setting the directions pursued by Institute
scientists. The first is the Iowa Youth and Families Project, a
long term panel study of rural families. The second is Project
Family, a set of preventive intervention projects. A unique
aspect of the Institute is the opportunity it provides for
cross-fertilization across basic and applied research programs.
A third set of studies has expanded ISBR’s focus to ethnically
diverse families, including American Indian and African American
families.
The Iowa Youth and Families Project
In the late 1980s a program of research was
initiated entitled the Iowa Youth and Families Project (IYFP),
directed by Rand Conger. The National Institute of Mental Health and the
National Institute on Drug Abuse provided the primary funding for this study of
rural families in Iowa. The original sample of two-parent families was expanded
by the addition of a panel of single-parent families (Iowa Single Parent
Project), for a total sample of over 550 families. The purpose of the study was
to investigate how families and children respond to stress and the health
consequences of financial hardship. The study is now known as the
Family
Transitions Project.
The IYFP played a critical role in the
development of the current institute. First, it established a family focus for
institute research, which pervades the many projects that have been initiated
since the late 1980s. Second, it helped to develop many of the methodological
tools that have assisted Institute research during the past decade. The IYFP
provided the research background necessary to compete successfully for a center
grant. From 1990 to 2000, the Institute housed an NIMH-funded Center for Rural
Mental Health.
Project Family
Early work on preventive interventions was
funded by Iowa Methodist Medical Center and the Mid-Iowa Health
Foundation. This line of applied work spawned a large-scale
program of prevention research called Project Family, which is
led by Richard Spoth. Project Family includes six studies
examining the outcomes of a number of preventive interventions
for families and youth, among which is a longitudinal study that
is now in its twelfth year. It also involves a number of studies
evaluating intervention needs among Iowa residents, factors
influencing family and youth participation in interventions, and
school-community-university intervention partnerships. The
majority of funding for Project Family has come from the
National Institutes of Health.
An exciting component of Project
Family, PROSPER (Promoting School-Community-University
Partnerships to Enhance Resilience), was recently funded by the
National Institute on Drug Abuse. The purpose of the PROSPER
project is to promote the development of sustainable
partnerships among schools, communities and universities to
facilitate the delivery of scientifically-tested interventions.
These interventions are designed to reduce adolescent substance
use and other problem behaviors and to promote youth competence.
PROSPER links two existing systems for the delivery of
preventive interventions, the Cooperative Extension System and
the public school system. The first phase of the PROSPER project
involves the development of school, community, and university
partnerships in selected communities in two states (Iowa and
Pennsylvania). A randomized trial will evaluate the
effectiveness of preventive interventions on a range of
outcomes. Also, the relationship between partnership functioning
and intervention outcomes will be examined. Using the first
phase results as a guide, the second phase will entail (a) an
expansion to additional sites in Iowa and Pennsylvania and, most
importantly, (b) the gradual inclusion of an increasing number
of states as part of a national network of partnerships.
Studies of Diverse Families
In the mid-1990s, Larry Martin, Les
Whitbeck, Jerry Stubben, and Dan Hoyt launched an important
series of culturally sensitive studies in which they worked with
Native American communities to develop preventive interventions
for youth and families. These interventions were designed to
prevent the onset of drug and alcohol use among Native American
youth. Results showed that the most effective approach was to
expose youth to and engage them in the traditional values,
rituals, and beliefs of their tribal heritage. Whitbeck and Hoyt
have left Iowa State University and continue this line of
research at the University of Nebraska. Dr. Martin is at the
University of Wisconsin-Superior.
In 1995, the Family and Community Health
Study (FACHS), a longitudinal investigation of over 800 African
American families, was funded by the National Institute of
Mental Health. The original FACHS project was an NIMH Center
Grant (Center for Rural Mental Health, Principal Investigator,
Rand Conger). Principal investigators for the research projects
included in FACHS are Carolyn Cutrona, Frederick Gibbons, and
Ronald Simons. The project was funded for an additional five
years in 2001. The overarching theme of the FACHS project is
understanding resiliency. Although African American families
face a range of challenges, including racially-based
discrimination and poverty, most African American children grow
up to be competent, well-adjusted individuals. Past research
has paid little attention to the community, family, or personal
characteristics that create this resilience. The FACHS project
adopts a life-course perspective and strives to understand the
life trajectories of African American children and adults.
Individual projects focus on community-level, family-level, and
individual-level predictors of child and adult outcomes
including mental health, health risk behaviors, and family
relationship quality.
Other ISBR Projects
ISBR scientists are currently engaged in a
range of research projects. Rick Gibbons and Meg Gerrard have a
long-standing program of research on social-psychological
factors that influence the health behavior of rural Iowa
adolescents and college students, the Health and Behavior
Research Project. This research is funded by the National
Institute for Alcoholism and Alcohol Abuse and was part of the
original Center for Rural Mental Health. Jerry Stubben and
Catherine Hockaday recently obtained funding to test a set of
school-based drug- and alcohol-use prevention programs. These
programs were adapted from the Reconnecting Youth Program
developed at the University of Washington. Daniel Russell
studies church attendance, loneliness and health among the
elderly. Meg Gerrard, Virginia Molgaard, and Rick Gibbons are
developing and testing a culturally-sensitive preventive
intervention for African American youth, in partnership with the
University of Georgia. ISBR has a subcontract with Terry
Thornberry, of the University of Rochester, to code videotapes
of children for his longitudinal investigation of child
temperament. Projects are under development to study rural
Hispanic families, African American newlywed couples,
physiological reactions of husbands and wives during conflict,
and self-fulfilling prophecies in which parental expectations
shape maladaptive child behavior.
