Prevention Center: Parenting Among Women who are Opioid Users

Opioid use in young adults is rising at unprecedented levels and has reached epidemic proportions in some areas of the country, particularly rural areas. The long-term goal of this Center of Excellence, “Center on Parenting and Opioids (CPO),” is to improve the well-being of individuals, families, and communities affected by the opioid crisis through a focus on behavioral (parental responsivity, warmth) and neurocognitive systems (e.g., executive functioning, reward responsiveness) that are underlying mechanisms common to both addiction issues and parenting challenges.

The Center includes three research projects, an administrative core, a pilot and training core, and a data science core. The research projects and cores are based upon a unifying conceptual model and employ a translational science approach in which basic science investigations of underlying mechanisms are leveraged in the development and evaluation of scalable interventions that are designed to deliver population-level impacts on policy and practice. 

Dr. Leve is contact Principal Investigator (PI) on the Center, PI on the administrative core, and Co-I on a supplement of research project 2, which has the goal of developing and testing a telehealth intervention for young adult parents living in rural areas who have had a history of substance misuse to prevent opioid misuse.

Directors of the Three Projects and Cores:

Funder: NIDA, P50 DA048756 

Go to study website

Turning Points

Women are the fastest growing incarcerated population in the United States. There are approximately 1.2 million women under the supervision of the criminal justice system over 200,000 women incarcerated in jails or prisons. In 2015, girls represented approximately 29% of all juvenile arrests and accounted for 15% of youth in placement. Though researchers and policymakers increasingly recognize the importance of understanding female offending, there is relatively little known about the longitudinal trajectories of female offending. We also know little about the potential negative outcomes of these trajectories, and the protective and risk processes that contribute not only to persistence, but also to desistance from adult offending, specifically for women.

The Turning Points Study builds on an existing longitudinal study to further our understanding of the trajectories of women’s justice involvement across adolescence and adulthood. It is one of the longest ongoing studies examining women’s involvement in the juvenile justice and criminal justice systems.

Our team will focus on understanding trajectories of trauma exposure and its sequalae, in order to identify salient points for prevention and intervention efforts. Another key goal of the project is to understand whether Treatment Foster Care Oregon (TFCO) delivered during adolescence has long-term benefits for women’s physiological health, as measured through an index of allostatic load.

Study Investigators:

Early Growth and Development Study (EGDS) - Adolescence

The study aims to clarify how heritable risks and prenatal and postnatal environments work together with hormonal changes to influence the development of risk for early substance use (SU) and related problems in adolescence. We are collecting new data from EGDS participants as they enter and progress through adolescence on SU milestones, behavioral risk for SU, and pubertal development.

This study will help to advance knowledge of the development of adolescent SU, will help clarify which children are at greatest risk for developing SU and related behaviors early in adolescence, and to indicate which influences are most salient for SU development given multiple other influences.

Study Investigators:

Early Growth and Development Study (EGDS)

The Early Growth & Development Study (EGDS) is a nationwide, prospective study of birth parents and adoptive families aimed at investigating how families can help their children develop to their fullest potential. Our study builds on emerging evidence about the relationship between heredity and the family environment—that is, nature and nurture—and how the two work together and separately in child development. This study is the first of its kind to examine such issues and general adoption issues such as openness.

EGDS-School follows the original sample of children with a focus on school readiness and executive functioning (basic abilities such as memory and attention). EGDS-Phase 2 examines the influences of the prenatal environment, the family environment, and heredity on child development. EGDS-NIMH examines pathways to the development of early emerging emotional and behavioral symptoms and to later psychiatric symptoms in middle childhood.

The fourth and most recent phase is EGDS-Health which focuses on the eating habits and behaviors of adoptive parents, their children, and of birth parents, examining family dietary habits, food preferences, physical activities, and child growth patterns from birth to middle childhood.

Study Investigators:

Funder: NICHD (R01 HD042608, R56 HD042608), NIDA (R01 DA020585), NIMH (R01 MH092118), NIDDK (R01 DK090264)

Go to study website

Girls Longitudinal Study (GLO) 

The major goals of this project were to (a) specify developmental trajectories in young adult females at risk, (b) examine the effects of the Treatment Foster Care Oregon (TFCO) intervention on young adult outcomes, and (c) examine the cost effectiveness and cost avoidance of the TFCO intervention on outcomes.

This work is some of the only evidence-based work on interventions for adolescent females in the juvenile justice system.

Study Investigators:

• Leslie Leve (PI) – University of Oregon
• David Kerr (PI) – Oregon State University
• Patricia Chamberlain (PI) – Oregon Social Learning Center
• Lisa Saldana – Oregon Social Learning Center

Funder: NIDA (R01 DA024672) and NIMH (R21 MH091611). Funding for the original studies was provided by NIMH (R01 MH054257) and NIDA (R01 DA027091)