Substance Use | Penn State College of Health and Human Development

We approach the study of the etiology, consequences, and prevention of substance use using diverse expertise and approaches, including developmental cognitive neuroscience; developmental epidemiology; interactions of genes and neurobiological factors with social experiences as influences on development and intervention success; early life and intergenerational influences; family systems processes and family-centered interventions; economic cost-benefit analyses to promote evidence-based prevention; and development of methods and statistics for collecting, analyzing, and optimizing substance use behaviors, processes, and interventions. Research on substance use in HDFS spans the full range from childhood through adulthood, with many projects focusing on late childhood through the early adult years. Postdocs and graduate students can also benefit from our many active and productive collaborations with scholars at other institutions and make use of diverse data we collect and analyze in numerous family-, school-, community-, regional-, and national-based samples. Special population foci include studies of substance naïve teens, homeless adolescents, Latino immigrant families with adolescents, LBGT youth, British cohort studies, nicotine dependent adults, and individuals with other addictions.

HDFS faculty who study Substance Use include:

Mayra Bamaca-Colbert

Sy-Miin Chow

H. Harrington (Bo) Cleveland