Session: Going to Scale: Lessons from Research on Parenting Programs to Reduce Health Disparities on a Global Level (Society for Prevention Research 25th Annual Meeting)

Parenting programs are one of the key strategies for the prevention of negative mental and physical health outcomes during childhood, adolescence, and later in adulthood. To this end, the successful dissemination of parenting interventions to socioeconomically and culturally diverse populations within and across countries is vital for reducing health disparities. Emerging evidence from recent meta-analyses suggests that parenting programs tend to have equal benefits for families across different socioeconomic and cultural backgrounds, thus helping to reduce rather than widen health disparities. The main challenge for achieving this, however, lies in reaching families, particularly socioeconomically disadvantaged and minority families living in high income countries (HICs), and families living in low- and middle income countries (LMICs). Moreover, it is critical that researchers, policy makers, and practitioners are able to translate evidence on a small scale into implementation at a population level, especially in low-resource contexts where the need is greatest.

This 20x20 symposium brings together a dynamic group of researchers committed to addressing this issue from a diversity of scientific perspectives and backgrounds. The first presenter explores the challenges encountered when balancing the increasing demand for the dissemination of parenting programs to reduce violence against children in LMICs with the need to generate more evidence of program effectiveness, cost effectiveness, and scalability. The second presenter builds upon this theme by focusing on a qualitative study of a specific program developed and tested in South Africa with the aims of embedding it within existing social services. The third presenter provides an example from Norway where a prevention package consisting of multiple interventions delivered in multiple settings allows for the tailoring of interventions to specific family needs while at the same time implementing the package at scale. The fourth presenter provides a more international perspective examining the process evaluation of the rapid expansion of an eight-week parenting program to over 30 countries in widely diverse contexts in a ‘global pilot study.’ The fifth presenter offers an innovative approach of examining the benefits of promoting compassionate, nurturing environments as a protective factor to negative child outcomes. Finally, the last presenter uses evidence from a series of systematic reviews and meta-analyses to develop a guide to inform real-world decisions of policymakers and practitioners on the selection of evidence-based parenting programs or program components that may be the most effective for implementation at scale.