SOCIAL INFLUENCES ON CHILD DEVELOPMENT

The candidate, Virginia A. Rauh, is Assistant Professor of Public Health at Columbia University School of Public Health, where she is currently teaching in the area of Maternal & Child Health, and conducting research focused on reproductive health and developmental processes in minority populations. Active and proposed research projects are interdisciplinary, with co-investigators from the departments of Obstetrics & Gynecology, Child Psychiatry, Epidemiology, and the Institute of Human Nutrition (all located in the Columbia University Health Sciences complex). Clinical sites (for recruitment of subjects) include ambulatory care clinics at Presbyterian Hospital in the City of N.Y. Harlem Hospital Medical Center, and St. Vincent's Hospital Chinatown Clinic. As part of the 5-year plan, the candidate will develop and carry out a longitudinal study to identify and ascertain the effects of psychosocial risk factor for adverse child developmental outcomes (at birth and through the pre-school period) among disadvantaged, minority children. The candidate is particularly concerned with the application of empirical findings to the field of early intervention. To this end, she aims to develop working relationships with public health and child developmental policy makers. Long-term career goals are concerned with the design of early intervention program that are based on the candidate's observational work and recent advances in the field. Because intervention research currently suffers from a number of conceptual and methodologic limitations, the candidate plans to focus on the solution of some of these problems (including the development and field-testing of culturally sensitive measures of risk factors as well as developmental outcome) before proceeding with the design and evaluation of new intervention programs. The RCDA would enable DR. Rauh to carry out such a research plan, and provide her with the time and opportunity to conduct thoughtful analyses of existing data sets. In the event of an award, Columbia University will limit the candidate's teaching load and relieve her of her current responsibilities as chair of the school-wide Steering Committee. Furthermore, if the candidate enjoys a successful publication record, the Dean's Office anticipates a promotion to Associate Professor in the next five years.