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The Science of Healthy Behavior

Using Research-Based Policies and Strategies to Promote Health and Safety

  • Community Service as a Prevention Strategy

    Community service programs—when combined with curriculum—not only promote community values and good citizenship, they may also protect students from risky health behaviors during adolescence. When New York City middle school students’ community service work (three hours per week) was combined with health instruction, both their violent behavior and their high-risk sexual activity dropped significantly.

  • An Environmental Approach to Campus Drinking

    HEC is working to move colleges away from a primarily educational approach to high-risk drinking and toward a broader, public health approach. HEC collaborates with college students, administrators, and faculty to help them re-examine and expand their responses to student drinking. In addition to serving as a clearinghouse and publisher of prevention resources, HEC provides training and technical assistance to individual campuses.

  • School Violence Prevention

    As school officials around the country strive to become more savvy about handling violence, they are zeroing in on the critical role of “bystanders”: the confidantes of violent youth or those who are present when violence occurs.

  • Youth Substance Abuse Prevention

    The Gloucester Prevention Network (GPN) helps teens develop a citywide petition effort to outlaw cigarette vending machines.

  • Bridging Schools and Communities

    The prevention work of EDC’s Health and Human Development Programs (EDC/HHD) spans the spectrum, addressing public health challenges related to alcohol, tobacco, and other drug use; HIV infection; injuries; and violence. We work with communities; schools; and state, local, and national agencies in both the United States and many other countries.

  • Injury Prevention

    While high-profile school shootings dominate national headlines, a much greater threat to adolescent health is going less reported: Teen suicide rates have tripled over the last 35 years, outpacing homicide rates among 15-19 year olds by as much as four to one. Suicide is now the second leading cause of death among teens, following automobile crashes.

  • Fighting the spread of AIDS in Southern Africa

    Education and social marketing initiatives have proven to be effective prevention strategies in several African nations. Building on successful school-based prevention efforts in the United States, EDC/HHD is collaborating with other international organizations to enlist African teachers in the fight against AIDS.