Cardiovascular disease (CVD) continues to be the leading cause of death in the United States, with African Americans experiencing higher age-adjusted mortality compared to Whites. African American women in particular carry a high CVD burden due to more exposure to adverse personal and socioenvironmental challenges. Church-based interventions can…

The impact of community-wide teen pregnancy prevention initiatives (CWIs) on local U.S. birth rates among adolescents aged 15 to 19 years was examined using synthetic control methodology within a quasi-experimental design. CWIs were implemented in 10 U.S. communities from 2010 to 2015. Each initiative implemented evidence-based teen pregnancy…

The Tutoring Partnership was a Saint Paul and Minneapolis network of 28 community-based programs that provided academic interventions through tutoring. The common goal was improving students' academic outcomes. The Tutoring Partnership, operated by the Saint Paul Public Schools Foundation, supported participating programs by helping them improve…

The Ready for School, Ready for Life initiative in Guilford County, North Carolina, aims to support interconnected programs and services for young children and their families with the goal of having children enter kindergarten ready for learning. The initiative aims to strengthen connections among existing programs in Guilford County and provide…

As the youth mentoring field has expanded and diversified in America over the last 30-plus years, many adults who care about getting these valuable relationships to more young people have asked questions about the scope and scale of mentoring in American society. In 2014, MENTOR first started to examine these societal level trends in a seminal…

Background: The COVID-19 pandemic affected health and well-being worldwide, but little is known about how the pandemic specifically impacted families with young children. Evidence suggests a relationship between well-being and health behaviors (diet, physical activity) and that preexisting health disparities were exacerbated during the pandemic.…

Children with chronic illnesses present unique health, psychosocial, and learning challenges. Due to the complexities surrounding their needs, these children and their families often encounter multilayered barriers when accessing educational services and health care management. Medical-family-school interprofessional interagency collaborations…

In June 2019, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors voted to close the city's juvenile hall, setting in motion a planning process that will culminate in the transfer of all remaining youth out of the facility and into community-led alternatives by the end of 2021. This analysis is the first in a series by the Center on Juvenile and Criminal…

Community schools represent a school reform approach that purports to address the multifaceted and intertwined challenges faced by poor urban communities and schools. The community school approach includes partnering with community organizations, making the school a community hub where services are provided during and outside of the school day,…

The COVID-19 pandemic has exposed a number of shortcomings in the nation's social infrastructure, one of which is access to the internet. When school is exclusively online or medical appointments rely principally on telehealth, those without online access are not merely inconvenienced. They are socially excluded, given their limited means to get…

In the city of Milwaukee, the vast majority of students do not achieve both high school and college graduation which has been termed as a "completion crisis." This is negatively impacting not only those students but also the region's workforce challenges. Indeed, the area economy could suffer greatly unless metro Milwaukee leaders can…

Dropping out of high school has adverse consequences, including negative effects on employment, lifetime earnings, and physical health. Students often fail to complete high school for complex reasons that often manifest long before they reach high school. This study examines the link between participation in a comprehensive elementary school…

This article is a historical case study of an attempt to build a citywide coalition in Rochester, NY. The coalition wanted to improve urban education by implementing community based wrap-around supports in a similar form as the well-respected Harlem Children's Zone. Our study found that groups had difficulty creating buy-in for this reform effort…

In 2016, the University of Washington's School Mental Health Assessment, Research, and Training (SMART) Center launched a three-year study examining the feasibility, effectiveness, and efficiency of a Brief Intervention Strategy for School Mental Health Clinicians (BRISC). SMART partnered with Wilder Research and the University of Maryland to…

After six months in a COVID-19 world, with the continued uncertainty of when things will return to normal, this brief, "Preparing for Back to School and Navigating Summer in the Time of COVID-19," combines findings from a survey of parents along with the second in a series of surveys of afterschool and summer providers to monitor the…