Papers by Nicholas Ialongo
Journal of School Psychology, 2020
Child psychiatry and human development, Jan 20, 2018
Research suggests that neighborhood risks are associated with internalizing symptoms for adolesce... more Research suggests that neighborhood risks are associated with internalizing symptoms for adolescents high on temperament characteristics related to the behavioral inhibition system (BIS). However, it is unclear whether newer conceptualizations of the BIS distinguishing fear from anxiety operate similarly. Furthermore, it is unclear whether the BIS attenuates community violence exposure effects on externalizing problems. The current study examined whether the BIS or the fight-flight-freeze system (FFFS) moderated associations between community violence exposure and internalizing and externalizing problems. Participants were 367 urban African American adolescents who reported on temperament characteristics in grade 9, and community violence exposure and adjustment problems in grades 9 and 10. Hierarchical linear regression analyses indicated that the FFFS, but not the BIS, moderated the association between community violence exposure and aggressive behavior. Grade 9 community violence...
Psychiatry research, 2018
Bullying is a significant public health concern with lasting impacts on youth. Although environme... more Bullying is a significant public health concern with lasting impacts on youth. Although environmental risk factors for bullying have been well-characterized, genetic influences on bullying are not well understood. This study explored the role of genetics on early childhood bullying behavior. Participants were 561 children who participated in a longitudinal randomized control trial of a preventive intervention beginning in first grade who were present for the first grade peer nominations used to measure early childhood bullying and who provided genetic data during the age 19-21 year follow-up in the form of blood or saliva. Measures included a polygenic risk score (PRS) derived from a conduct disorder genome wide association study. Latent profile analysis identified three profiles of bullying behaviors during early childhood. Results suggest that the PRS was significantly associated with class membership, with individuals in the moderate bully-victim profile having the highest levels...
Prevention science : the official journal of the Society for Prevention Research, Jan 29, 2018
Although there is little difference in rates of marijuana use between White and Black youth, Blac... more Although there is little difference in rates of marijuana use between White and Black youth, Blacks have significantly higher rates of marijuana use and disorder in young adulthood. Theory suggests that factors tied to social disadvantage may explain this disparity, and neighborhood setting may be a key exposure. This study sought to identify trajectories of marijuana use in an urban sample during emerging adulthood, neighborhood contexts that predict these trajectories and social role transitions or "turning points" that may redirect them. Data are from a longitudinal cohort study of 378 primarily Black emerging adults who were first sampled in childhood based on their residence in low-income neighborhoods in Baltimore City and followed up annually. Group-based trajectory modeling identified three groups: No Use (68.8%), Declining Use (19.6%), and Chronic Use (11.7%). Living in close proximity to an alcohol outlet, and living in a neighborhood with more female-headed hous...
Administration and policy in mental health, Jan 26, 2017
There is growing awareness of the importance of implementation fidelity and the supports, such as... more There is growing awareness of the importance of implementation fidelity and the supports, such as coaching, to optimize it. This study examined how coaching activities (i.e., check-ins, needs assessment, modeling, and technical assistance) related directly and indirectly to implementation dosage and quality of the PAX Good Behavior Game, via a mediating pathway through working relationship. Mediation analyses of 138 teachers revealed direct effects of modeling and working relationship on implementation dosage, whereas needs assessment was associated with greater dosage indirectly, by higher ratings of the working relationship. Understanding how coaching activities promote implementation fidelity elements has implications for improving program effectiveness.
Journal of School Psychology
Administration and policy in mental health, Jan 8, 2017
When candidates for school-based preventive interventions are heterogeneous in their risk of poor... more When candidates for school-based preventive interventions are heterogeneous in their risk of poor outcomes, an intervention's expected economic net benefits may be maximized by targeting candidates for whom the intervention is most likely to yield benefits, such as those at high risk of poor outcomes. Although increasing amounts of information about candidates may facilitate more accurate targeting, collecting information can be costly. We present an illustrative example to show how cost-benefit analysis results from effective intervention demonstrations can help us to assess whether improved targeting accuracy justifies the cost of collecting additional information needed to make this improvement.
Journal of urban health : bulletin of the New York Academy of Medicine, 2017
Urban populations disproportionately experience poor sexual outcomes, including high rates of tee... more Urban populations disproportionately experience poor sexual outcomes, including high rates of teenage pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections. However, the contribution of substance use across adolescence to poor sexual outcomes in young adulthood has not been investigated in depth, despite offering opportunities for more targeted prevention. This study aimed to estimate joint trajectories of adolescent alcohol and marijuana use to determine if they relate differently to four sexual outcomes: multiple sexual partners, sex without a condom, teenage pregnancy, and contraction of a sexually transmitted infection in young adulthood (by age 25). Data came from a longitudinal study of urban youth followed from age 6 to age 25, with annual assessments during adolescence and young adulthood (n = 608). The sample showed high levels of sexual risk, with young adults on average having sex without a condom once in the past month, 28.5% having multiple sexual partners in the past month, on...
Journal of school psychology, Aug 1, 2016
Although the United States faces a seemingly intractable divide between white and African America... more Although the United States faces a seemingly intractable divide between white and African American academic performance, there remains a dearth of longitudinal research investigating factors that work to maintain this gap. The present study examined whether racial discrimination predicted the academic performance of African American students through its effect on depressive symptoms. Participants were a community sample of African American adolescents (N=495) attending urban public schools from grade 7 to grade 9 (Mage=12.5). Structural equation modeling revealed that experienced racial discrimination predicted increases in depressive symptoms 1year later, which, in turn, predicted decreases in academic performance the following year. These results suggest that racial discrimination continues to play a critical role in the academic performance of African American students and, as such, contributes to the maintenance of the race-based academic achievement gap in the United States.
Administration and policy in mental health, Jan 20, 2016
Complier average causal effect (CACE) analysis is a causal inference approach that accounts for l... more Complier average causal effect (CACE) analysis is a causal inference approach that accounts for levels of teacher implementation compliance. In the current study, CACE was used to examine one-year impacts of PAX good behavior game (PAX GBG) and promoting alternative thinking strategies (PATHS) on teacher efficacy and burnout. Teachers in 27 elementary schools were randomized to PAX GBG, an integration of PAX GBG and PATHS, or a control condition. There were positive overall effects on teachers' efficacy beliefs, but high implementing teachers also reported increases in burnout across the school year. The CACE approach may offer new information not captured using a traditional intent-to-treat approach.
American journal of community psychology, Jun 1, 2016
African-American adolescents exposed to neighborhood disadvantage are at increased risk for engag... more African-American adolescents exposed to neighborhood disadvantage are at increased risk for engaging in problem behavior and academic underachievement. It is critical to identify the mechanisms that reduce problem behavior and promote better academic outcomes in this population. Based on social disorganization and socioecological theories, the current prospective study examined pathways from parental monitoring to academic outcomes via externalizing behavior at different levels of neighborhood disadvantage. A moderated mediation model employing maximum likelihood was conducted on 339 African-American students from 9th to 11th grade (49.3% females) with a mean age of 14.8 years (SD ± 0.35). The results indicated that parental monitoring predicted low externalizing behavior, and low externalizing behavior predicted better academic outcomes after controlling for externalizing behavior in 9th grade, intervention status, and gender. Mediation was supported, as the index of mediation was ...
Prevention Science, 2016
A number of classroom-based interventions have been developed to improve social and behavioral ou... more A number of classroom-based interventions have been developed to improve social and behavioral outcomes for students, yet few studies have examined how these programs impact the teachers who are implementing them. Impacts on teachers may affect students and therefore also serve as an important proximal outcome to examine. The current study draws upon data from a school-based randomized controlled trial testing the impact of two prevention programs. In one intervention condition, teachers were trained in the classroom behavior management program, PAX Good Behavior Game (PAX GBG). In a second intervention condition, teachers were trained to use an integrated program, referred to as PATHS to PAX, of the PAX GBG and a social and emotional learning curriculum called Promoting Alternative Thinking Strategies (PATHS©). This study aimed to determine whether both interventions positively impacted teachers, with a particular interest in the teachers' own beliefs and perceptions regarding self-efficacy, burnout, and social-emotional competence. The sample included 350 K-5 teachers across 27 schools (18 schools randomized to intervention, 9 to control). Multilevel latent growth curve analyses indicated that the PATHS to PAX condition generally demonstrated the most benefits to teachers, relative to both the control and PAX GBG conditions. These findings suggest that school-based preventive interventions can have a positive impact on teachers' beliefs and perceptions, particularly when the program includes a social-emotional component. Several possible mechanisms might account for the added benefit to teachers. Additional research is needed to better understand how these programs impact teachers, as well as students.
Suicide & life-threatening behavior, Jun 23, 2015
The trajectory of suicidal ideation across early adolescence may inform the timing of suicide pre... more The trajectory of suicidal ideation across early adolescence may inform the timing of suicide prevention program implementation. This study aimed to identify developmental trajectories of suicidal ideation among an urban cohort of community-residing African Americans (AA) longitudinally followed from middle school through early adulthood (ages 11-19 years). Subtypes based on the developmental course of suicidal ideation from late childhood through mid-adolescence were identified using longitudinal latent class analysis (LLCA) with 581 AA adolescents (52.7% male; 71.1% free or reduced school meals). The developmental trajectories of suicidal ideation were then used to predict suicide attempts in young adulthood. Our LLCA indicated two subtypes (i.e., ideators and nonideators), with 8% of the sample in the ideator class. This trajectory class shows a peak of suicidal ideation in seventh grade and a steady decline in ideation in subsequent grades. Additionally, suicidal ideation trajec...
Introduction: With implementation of evidence-based interventions typically being poorer in real-... more Introduction: With implementation of evidence-based interventions typically being poorer in real-world settings than in efficacy trials (Dusenbury et al., 2003; Ringwalt et al., 2003), there is increasing interest among federal agencies, researchers, and policy makers in translational research (SPR, 2008). Although research shows that on-going, rather than one-time or occasional, training is needed in order to promote implementation and sustainability (Fixsen et al., 2003), it is currently unknown how much or how often “on-going” supports are needed in order to promote teacher implementation and thus student outcomes. This paper addresses this gap in the literature by determining specific patterns of coaching support to enhance teachers’ implementation of the Good Behavior Game (GBG; Barrish et al., 1969; Embry et al., 2003). Specifically, data from a one-year randomized controlled trial of the GBG will be used to determine whether coaches provide varying levels support in terms of ...
Introduction: Although randomized trials suggest that coaching is more effective than the absence... more Introduction: Although randomized trials suggest that coaching is more effective than the absence of this form of support, well-articulated guides of the coaching practices that support teacher implementation of prevention programs are lacking in the literature (Stormont et al., 2012). It is also unclear whether all teachers benefit equally from coaching or if coaching needs to be tailored in terms of types of supports, amount of time, or number of contacts. The primary goal of the current paper is to describe the practices employed by a team of coaches aiming at optimizing implementation of two widely-used classroom-based prevention programs: the PAX Good Behavior Game (PAX GBG; Embry et al., 2003) and the Promoting Alternative Thinking Strategies curriculum (PATHS; Kusche & Greenberg, 1995). A second goal of this paper was to examine the association between specific coaching activities and improvement in implementation quality over the course of the school year. Method: Data came ...
Despite recent evidence of higher rates of marijuana use among African Americans than Whites, lim... more Despite recent evidence of higher rates of marijuana use among African Americans than Whites, limited research has examined the reasons for this racial disparity. The purpose of this study is to examine how contextual stressors that disproportionately affect African American adolescents are related to marijuana opportunities and use in a sample of primarily low-income urban-dwelling African Americans. Four hundred and seventy African-American children were interviewed annually beginning in first grade as part of a longitudinal field study in Baltimore city. Latent transition analysis was conducted to examine the influence of contextual stress as measured by neighborhood disorder, community violence exposure and racial discrimination on transitions across stages of marijuana involvement in 6th-9th grades. Three-stages of marijuana involvement emerged: no involvement, marijuana opportunities and use and problems. Youth who reported witnessing or being a victim of community violence we...
Journal of adolescence, Jan 25, 2015
Adolescents in disadvantaged communities have high rates of exposure to stress and trauma, which ... more Adolescents in disadvantaged communities have high rates of exposure to stress and trauma, which can negatively impact emotion regulation and executive functioning, increasing likelihood of school problems. This pilot study evaluated RAP Club, a 12-session school-based trauma-informed group intervention co-facilitated by a mental health counselor and young adult community member that utilizes evidence-based cognitive-behavioral and mindfulness strategies. Seventh and eighth graders at two urban public schools serving low-income communities were assigned to receive RAP Club (n = 29) or regular school programming (n = 20). RAP Club improved teacher-rated emotion regulation, social and academic competence, classroom behavior, and discipline. Higher program dose predicted improvements in several teacher-rated outcomes. Student self-report outcomes, however, did not vary by study group or dose. Even students with low baseline depression showed improvement in teacher-rated outcomes follow...
School Mental Health, 2015
There is growing interest in coaching to support teacher implementation of evidence-based interve... more There is growing interest in coaching to support teacher implementation of evidence-based interventions; yet, there is limited research examining the tailoring of coaching support to teachers' needs. This paper examined coaching dosage across one school year, and the relationship between coaching contacts and teacher baseline and end-of-year data. Data came from a randomized controlled trial including 210 teachers in 18 schools implementing the Good Behavior Game (GBG), either as a stand alone or when integrated with a social-emotional learning curriculum. The overarching goal was to determine whether coaches provided varying levels of teacher contacts and how this support related to condition assignment, implementation, and teachers' beliefs and perceptions data. Growth mixture modeling (GMM) was used to examine the frequency of teacher contacts across the school year. GMM indicated three distinct patterns: about 58 % of teachers received a moderate number of contacts; 27 % received a consistently low number of contacts; and 15 % received high and increasing support. Teachers who received a high degree of support were more often implementing the integrated GBG and reported more negative beliefs and perceptions at the start of the school year than those in the low contact class. Teachers in the low contact class implemented the least number of games and minutes of GBG, but reported better perceptions of organizational health and burnout, at the end of the year. Coaching dosage was unrelated to observer ratings of implementation quality.
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Papers by Nicholas Ialongo