The Implications of Genetics for Prevention and Intervention Programming

With recent advances in high-throughput technology, genetic and other biological data are increasingly being incorporated in social science research, including studies that have implications for prevention/intervention work. Understanding the role genetics play in complex behaviors may have important implications for designing prevention programing, determining who receives certain prevention programs, and understanding individual differences to prevention programming effectiveness. This set of TED-like talks covers key issues related to the integration of genetics in prevention science and offers some solutions to the challenges in the field. Our first talk “Findings from the genetics of PROSPER study and a discussion of how to operationalize genetic variance,” uses a seminal study in the field of prevention science to explore methods related to genetic integration. This talk focuses on the use of gene scores, offering a way for prevention science scholars to move past typical candidate gene work. Our second talk titled “Integrating development into GxE and GxI research,” discusses the important use of longitudinal studies in prevention science. Gene-by-environment and gene-by-intervention interaction studies that capitalize on longitudinal data offer great promise when modeled correctly. This talk offers an analytic approach to appropriately model these complex relationships. Our third talk, “Informing prevention and intervention policy using genetic studies of resistance,” brings the concept of risk and resilience to the fore front of genetics. This talk explores the possibility of resistance genetics in prevention science research and sets forth a general framework for examining resistance outcomes in genetically informed prevention designs. Our fourth talk titled “Genetics and race in prevention science: A tangled web” discusses the ever important concept of race as it relates to genetics. This complex issue is often overlooked by psychological researchers; however, the presenting author demonstrates the danger of this by stepping the audience through examples wherein race plays a large role in associations found in genetics studies. Our fifth talk “Using genetics in prevention: Science fiction or science fact?” discusses how we can utilize findings from genetics research in prevention and intervention programming without going to the extremes as some researchers, policy makers and clinicians fear. Our final talk is titled “Challenges (and some solutions) in integrating genetics into prevention research,” and offers commentary on the integration of genetics into prevention research. The presenting author discusses the short history of genetics in prevention work and identifies new and emerging areas of interest.