The Section on Society and Health focuses on the influence of families, communities and social forces such as civic engagement and discrimination on health, and the potential to improve health by influencing society. Section faculty and staff support the growth and development of research in the area of society and health through strategies that include promoting:
Collaboration, particularly through regular meetings at which faculty and staff share new research ideas, proposals in preparation and current research in order to solicit feedback and open doors to collaboration.
Faculty and staff development through exposure to discussions of research ideas and exposure to teams from different projects.
Development of shared infrastructure, such as capacity for program evaluation, community organization, network analysis, qualitative research, and statistical methods relevant to the analysis of societal factors and health (such as Geographic Information Systems).
Free to Grow: Head Start Partnerships to Promote Substance-Free Communities Program
This report summarizes the results of the National Evaluation of Free to Grow: Head Start Partnerships to Promote Substance-Free Communities (hereinafter “FTG”). It is aimed at a number of interested audiences, including the funders of FTG and of the National Evaluation (the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, and the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention) and other comprehensive community initiatives; Head Start agencies (including those that participated in FTG and others); federal, state, and local policymakers; and researchers.
The report is intended to provide an overview of the results of the National Evaluation. It is not meant to be a comprehensive account of the FTG initiative, or of the National Evaluation. Readers interested in more detail should consult other sources, including the following:
A Grant Results Report that is being prepared by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. When it is completed, it will be posted on the foundation’s website: http://www.rwjf.org/pr/grr.jsp
A series of articles on the methods and results of the National Evaluation; these will be posted, as they become available, on the website for the National Evaluation:
Irene M. Wielawski. 2006. “Free to Grow.” Pp. 3-27 in Stephen L. Issacs and James R. Knickman (eds.), To Improve Health and Health Care, Volume IX. Princeton, New Jersey: The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.
Judith E. Jones, Marjorie A. Gutman MA, and Nancy J. Kaufman. 1999. “Free to Grow: Translating Substance Abuse Research and Theory into Preventive Practice in a National Head Start Initiative.” The Journal of Primary Prevention 1999 June 1;19(4):279-96.
