A 30-minute lesson can connect young people to nature, preserve for others
A 30-minute educational lesson about the importance of leaving what you find during outdoor experiences helps young people feel more connected to nature and results in children being less likely to take natural items home as souvenirs, according to a study conducted at Outdoor School, a residential…
Barriers prevent family-centered services for children with speech disabilities
While speech-language pathologists support the concept of family-centered services when working with children who cannot meet their communication needs through their own speech due to autism or other disorders, a Penn State study shows that there are barriers to meeting this goal.
Specifically, the…
NIH launches HEAL Initiative, doubles funding to accelerate scientific solutions to stem national opioid epidemic
Today, at the 2018 National Rx Drug Abuse and Heroin Summit, National Institutes of Health Director Francis S. Collins, M.D., Ph.D., announced the launch of the HEAL (Helping to End Addiction Long-term) Initiative, an aggressive, trans-agency effort to speed scientific solutions to stem the…
Examining role of genetics, environment in substance use among adopted children
A five-year, $3.3 million grant from the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) will allow scholars from Penn State and three other academic institutions to continue studying the role that both genetics and environment play in the development of early substance use among adopted children.
Jenae…
Wilkinson named recipient of 2018 Barash Award for Human Service
Krista Wilkinson, professor of communication sciences and disorders in the College of Health and Human Development at Penn State, is the 2018 recipient of the Barash Award for Human Service.
Created in 1975 by the family of the late Sy Barash, the award honors a full-time member of the faculty,…
Inaccurate data analysis may affect Puerto Rico’s recovery
The ability to use statistics to guide decision-making may be collateral damage of Hurricane Maria's devastating blow to Puerto Rico, according to a Penn State demographer.
In an article published today (April 2) in Health Affairs, Alexis Raúl Santos, the director of the graduate program in applied…
Program invests in early-stage translational science researchers
Researchers of cancer, post-traumatic stress disorder, staph infections in babies, health behavior choices in sexual minority college students, high blood pressure management in African Americans, proactive sexually transmitted infection testing, and the brain’s role in determining a smoker’s…
Study finds dramatic rise in Pa. babies affected by opioids
A new study shows the number of babies born in Pennsylvania with opioid withdrawal symptoms has increased 1,000 percent since 2000. The Health Care Cost Containment Council released the data, saying more babies are born diagnosed with neonatal abstinence syndrome.
Joe Martin of the council says…
Why Social Science? - Because It Produces Essential Data for Our Democracy
By Ronald L. Wasserstein, Ph.D., Executive Director, American Statistical Association
The social sciences are vitally important to the institutions of democracy. Those institutions include a constellation of federal statistical agencies responsible for collecting and disseminating data. With these…
Solutions Network researcher funded to study cardiovascular disease risk in children
Cardiovascular disease (CVD) causes over 30 percent of all deaths in the U.S. and its roots can be found even in children. Hannah Schreier, Child Maltreatment Solutions Network co-funded faculty member and assistant professor of biobehavioral health, was recently awarded a grant from the National…
Sexsmith receives Roy C. Buck Award for paper on health care access
PRI affiliate Kathleen Sexsmith, assistant professor of rural sociology in Penn State's College of Agricultural Sciences, is the recipient of the college's 2017 Roy C. Buck Faculty Award, which recognizes the best article accepted or published by a refereed scholarly journal in the social sciences…
Science achievement gaps study recognized
Penn State researchers Paul Morgan, CEDR director and professor of education, and Marianne Hillemeier, professor of health policy and administration and demography, and their colleague George Farkas, professor of education at University of California Irvine, received the Distinguished Research…
Perkins named to National Academies committee on military family well-being
Daniel Perkins, founder and principal scientist of Penn State’s Clearinghouse for Military Family Readiness and professor of youth and family resiliency and policy, was recently appointed to serve as a member of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine Committee on the Well-…
Parenting and personality work together to affect baby’s weight gain
Offering a snack may be a sure way to soothe a fussy child, but researchers say making it a habit can result in unnecessary weight gain in babies with certain temperaments.
The researchers studied the babies’ temperament and how their mothers soothed them when the babies were six months old. When…
Forgetting details, getting the gist may prompt false memories in older adults
Older adults often complain about forgetting, but Penn State psychologists suggest that another problem may be misremembering.
In a study, the researchers found that as people age, they may be more likely to rely on a type of memory — called schematic memory — that helps them remember the gist of…
COSSA Releases 2018 Edition of State Fact Sheets, New Federal Funding Dashboard
COSSA has released the 2018 edition of its state funding fact sheets, a set of one-pagers that highlight the amount of federal social science research funding that goes to each state, including one for Pennsylvania. Accompanying this year’s fact sheets is a brand-new federal funding dashboard with…
Giving grant applications a second chance
NIH receives many meritorious grant applications for which there are inadequate resources to fund. Thanks to the Online Partnership to Accelerate Research (OnPAR), there is now a second chance at funding for these applications.
Leidos Health’s Life Sciences has partnered with NIH to…
Students who think their parents approve of drinking may drink more
Teens may act like they’re not listening, but students who think their parents are more accepting of drinking tend to drink more in college, according to researchers.
The researchers asked students about their drinking habits and how much they believed their parents were accepting of them…
Building resilience and hope in foster children awareness event April 7
In America today, there are nearly 400,000 children in the foster care system. Although they can face many challenges, positive experiences during PreK-12 education may offset abusive or neglectful treatment. Foster youth who continue into college are better prepared for adulthood and more likely…
Former U.S. Census director Robert Groves to present Clogg Lectures
Robert M. Groves, executive vice president and provost and Gerard J. Campbell S.J. Professor in the Department of Math and Statistics and the Department of Sociology at Georgetown University, will present the 2018 Clifford C. Clogg Memorial Lectures on March 26 and 27 at the Penn State University…
Fellowship equips researchers with skills to engage community in research
Gina Brelsford’s daughter was born at 32 weeks in 2007 and was hospitalized in the neonatal intensive care (NICU) unit for five weeks. That experience inspired the associate professor of psychology at Penn State Harrisburg to study the role of religion and spirituality in coping by parents of…
Congressional briefing on school violence and march taking place
Just last month, Parkland High School was the scene of one of the deadliest school shootings in the world. Now these Parkland students, as well as students all over the country, are uniting as advocates for change and marching in the March for Our Lives demonstration that is taking place in…
Clinical research guidebook is solid example of collaboration
A newly launched online guidebook can help early-career to established Penn State researchers more easily navigate the clinical research process at Penn State College of Medicine and Penn State Health Milton S. Hershey Medical Center.
The guidebook, a project sponsored by the Penn State Clinical…
Penn State professor joined Dalai Lama in panel discussion
Robert Roeser, Bennett Pierce Professor of Caring and Compassion and professor of human development and family studies at Penn State, took part in a panel discussion with the Dalai Lama on March 15 at the Main Tibetan Temple in Dharamsala, India.
Roeser and the Dalai Lama participated in a panel…
Individual education programs not being used as intended in special education
Gone are the days when students with disabilities were placed in a separate classroom, or even in a completely different part of the school. These students often sit alongside their traditional student peers for at least part of the day, with the help of individualized education programs (IEPs).…