For more than two decades, the Partnerships in Prevention Science Institute at Iowa State has been developing interventions for children in the young adolescent stage.

The interventions have shown positive results for the participants.

Children who partook in the interventions saw trends of less risky behavior, better relationships with friends and family members, decreased depression and less substance abuse than the group that did not receive an intervention.

This was determined from surveys taken by former participants when they were 17 to 25 years old.

The concluded results from the study were made public by the National Institute on Drug Abuse on Feb. 14.

There have been three studies conducted so far, with each one building off the other. The first study took place in 1993, but it was originally spawned by the institute and Richard Spoth, director of the Partnerships in Prevention Science Institute, in 1986 to study the effects of the 1980s farm crisis on rural Iowan families.

All three studies used the ISU Extension and Outreach program to deliver the interventions. The first two studies were solely based in Iowa, while the third study included Iowa and Pennsylvania participants with the help of Penn State University.

“The way we were delivering these programs is important,” Spoth said. “Extension reaches everywhere, it’s a key point.”

All the studies were divided into an intervention and control group, with the control group not receiving any intervention programs until after the study was over.

The groups were cities and towns; one town had the program while another town did not. The groups were compared at the end, with the intervention group showing the best results. 

The studies consisted of 22 to 28 towns.

The first study in 1993 was a family intervention program, and the second study in 1997 combined the family program with a school intervention program.

The 1993 study focused on families with children in the sixth grade, while the 1997 study focused on seventh graders in the school setting.

The third study began in 2002 and used a new program, which, based off the two prior studies, is called the Prosper Partnership model. Prosper uses a small, local social network to begin recruiting, usually employing the help of local leaders to help integrate the program into the community.

From there, community teams, which include local leaders and members of the local extension office, tried to implement the intervention program into the local school district and area families.

“It is an evidence-based program; programs that are tested and found to be affective,” said Jane Todey, program manager for the Prosper program at the Partnerships in Prevention Science Institute. 

“The Prosper model helps people stay on-target and made a bigger difference than traditional intervention programs.

Many areas chosen for the intervention program have since continued the programs long after the study was over and the grant funds were gone. 

“These studies have shown the potential to help everyone through implementation of these interventions through cooperative extension,” Spoth said.