Testing Mediating Mechanisms and Moderating Factors in Prevention Work

Aim:

In recent decades, there have been major advances in the design of studies to evaluate efficacy and effectiveness of preventive interventions.  These advancements contributed to the quality of evaluation studies and the confidence in the findings.  Most evaluation studies still focus only one of the most fundamental questions: Is the program effective? Relatively few research focus on other critical questions such as why, how, and when is a prevention program effective? Nevertheless, addressing these questions often requires complex statistical modeling, and some of these techniques are not commonly available to research community yet.

The goal of this workshop is introducing the new conceptual developments and statistical techniques that can be applied to testing mediating mechanisms and moderating factors of program effect.  The audience will be provided with conceptual arguments about mediation and moderation effects and recent developments in modeling mediating mechanisms and moderating factors in prevention research.

Learning the theoretical underpinnings and application of these techniques may provide researcher with opportunities to address intriguing research questions such as: How does a program influence targeted outcomes? Does the program work consistent with the program theory? Which components of the program do account for the program effect? What factors do boost or hinder effectiveness of programs? Do the effect of a program vary across different socioeconomic conditions? Are the processes that explain the program effect generalizable across different groups? Answering these questions is essential for a comprehensive understanding of the prevention programs. This understanding may also contribute to translation of research findings into practice. For example, understanding the effect of program components may guide decisions regarding program modification.  Similarly, understanding the factors that may influence program outcomes may guide decisions regarding program adoption.

Outline:

09:30 – 10:00    Introduction – Fabrizio Faggiano

10:00 – 11:00    Conceptual overview of mediation, moderation, moderated mediation

11:00 – 11:15    Break

11:15 – 13:00    New methods for testing mediating processes

13:00 – 14:00    Lunch

14:00 – 15:15    Examples

Example 1: Which components of the UNPLUGGED  explain reductions in youth risk outcomes? (An example of multiple-mediator model)

Example 2: Does the Örebro Prevention Program work consistent with the program theory? (An example using Latent Growth Curve Modeling)

15:15 – 15:30    Break

15:30 – 16:00    Group group exercise

Aim: Giving participants an opportunity to apply the information they were presented in the workshop in evaluating the design and statistical analyses of published work.

Procedure: The participants will be given 2 published studies, and a number of questions regarding how these studies modeled and tested program effect.

16:00 – 16:30    Reflections on the “group exercise”

16:30 – 17:00    General discussion, questions, reflections

Instructor: Metin Özdemir, Ph.D.

Metin Özdemir  received his doctoral degree in Community and Applied Social Psychology at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County in 2009.  He is currently affiliated with the Center for Developmental Research, Örebro University (Sweden), where he coordinates a Master’s program in prevention science. His research focuses on youth adjustment in normative populations and testing effectiveness of preventive interventions for youths and families. He has been teaching courses on prevention science theory and methods including advanced level courses on testing program effectiveness.

Co-instructor: Fabrizia Giannotta, Ph.D.

Fabrizia Giannotta has received her doctoral degree in Social and Developmental Psychology at University of Torino (Italy). She is currently affiliated with the Center for Developmental Research, Örebro University (Sweden), where she holds a lecturer position. Her research interests focus on the study of protective and risk factors in adolescence and the cross cultural adaptation of prevention programs to combat risk behaviors in adolescence.  She has been teaching courses on program development and evaluation and on research methods to evaluate programs effectiveness, in the Master program in prevention science at Örebro University.

“Prevention of problematic and addictive use of screen media – a call for action”

The first part of the workshop will give a comprehensive and critical introduction into the topic and give positive examples from new German and Spanish interventions.

• Paula Bleckmann, Hanover, Germany “Current state of media effects research – first evidence of its neglect in preventive practise due to conflict of interest”
• Michael Seidel; Bonn, Germany:– “Supporting parents to limit children´s problematic media use. Results and lessons learned from MEDIA PROTECT”
• Daniel Lloret Irles, Spain: “Teens and their parents as targets in an intervention to reduce problematic use of screen media”

The second half of the workshop will serve as discussion forum and possible kickoff meeting for a new EUSPR working group “eHealth/screen-related prevention” with three possible aims:

First, to serve as a starting point for a network of researchers and practitioners based on a widened and balanced understanding of “eHealth”: working to reduce problematic use of screen media and using new media for health promotion purposes where appropriate;

Second, to avoid the errors made in the past of prevention science, e.g. trusting economic stakeholders (in this case: media industry) to develop concepts for prevention;

Third, to discuss possibilities fo a joint European intervention design for prevention of problematic use of screen media that could be proposed to future EU funding streams.

Travel

Paris is easily accessible from all over the world. As travel options are so numerous we recommend that you visit the official Paris tourism website for specific guidance. The conference is located at Le Centquatre, 5 Rue Curial, 75019 Paris, France. (MAP) The nearest Metro stop is Stalingrad (19th Arr.)

Hotels

Please note that as we are expecting a wide variety of delegates with different budgets and accomodation expectations we do not make any specific recommendations for hotels. We therefore recommend that you use a website such as TripAdvisor to research and select your hotel.

However, our colleagues at Formule Magique (French conference organizing company) have provided us with a list of some hotels at different price ranges near to the conference venue. These are primarily hostels, and 2* to 3* hotels. Please click here to view the list (PDF). The list also provides local transport directions between the hotel and the conference venue.