Public Release:  Global health priorities should shift to preventing risky behaviors in adolescence: UW professor

University of Washington







Samples of their recommended programs are:

  • The Nurse-Family Partnership program, which provides regular home visits with nurses to poor, first-time mothers. The program resulted in 43 percent fewer subsequent pregnancies and decreased the mothers' welfare use, smoking and arrests. As the children grew up, they drank less alcohol, were less likely to be arrested and had fewer sex partners than children whose mothers were not in the program.
  • The Gatehouse Project, comprising a curriculum focused on building social, problem-solving and coping skills in schoolchildren and fostering positive classroom and school-wide environments, led to decreased smoking and other substance use and delayed the onset of sexual intercourse in adolescents.
  • The Conditional Cash Transfer programs, which paid school fees in low-income countries and gave about $10 a month to mothers to ensure their children would attend school. As a result, more girls stayed in school and adolescent pregnancies declined.

Catalano and his team also recommend some prevention policies:

  • Driving laws and safe roads could make a big difference in traffic crashes, which are the leading cause of death in adolescents. Licensing requirements that restrict the number of peer passengers and nighttime driving for new drivers and require more driving practice before licensing have been associated with fewer crashes.
  • Establishing a legal minimum drinking age of 21 and placing higher taxes on alcohol have led to less drinking and fewer traffic crashes in studies the United States, Canada, and Australia.






