Child and Adolescent Violence Research at NIH

problems is best understood as a dynamic interaction between child predispositions and various influences on children's lives (family, peer, and school/community) that change over critical periods of development.

Successful programs that produce long-term sustained effects may need to involve long-term intense interventions to target the multiple factors that can lead to negative outcomes such as family conflict, depression, social isolation, school failure, substance abuse, delinquency, and violence. The fundamental premise of some of these interventions which separate youth with problem behaviors challenges the policies, programs and procedures that currently bring problem youth together. Continued research is needed to determine the most appropriate targets for prevention and early intervention that will produce lasting change. Answers are emerging about which programs are most successful, but assessments need to be made about their costs, as well as if they will work for all groups of children and adolescents.

The NIMH is committed to encouraging and supporting this research, and has a long and enduring history of support for research and research training on violence. Throughout the 1950s, and early '60s, NIMH provided research and research training support that built much of the modern field of behavioral science, and much subsequent research on violence has built upon that foundation. In 1966, NIMH created a Center for Studies of Crime and Delinquency, which was the locus of pioneering research on aggressive, antisocial, and violent behavior and its consequences.

NIMH-supported research has generated information needed to identify, treat, and prevent not only the causes of violent behavior but also the effects of violence on victims, for example, child abuse. Most recently, the NIMH has assumed a lead role, along with the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, in developing a Surgeon General's report on the topic of youth violence. The NIMH believes that this report, as follow-up to the Surgeon General's Report on Mental Health, will be an effective and highly credible means of educating the public about the interaction of mental disorders and youth violence.

The Broad NIMH Research Program

In addition to rural mental health, NIMH supports and conducts a broad based, multi-disciplinary program of scientific inquiry aimed at improving the diagnosis, prevention, and treatment of other mental disorders. These illnesses include schizophrenia, manic-depressive illness, clinical depression, panic disorder, and obsessive-compulsive disorder.

Increasingly, the public as well as health care professionals are recognizing these disorders as real and

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