About the Center

The Center for Prevention Research at the University of Kentucky was established in October 1987 with funding from the National Institute on Drug Abuse ((NIDA), a subsidiary of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). It was the first such center funded by NIDA. The Center for Drug Abuse Research Translation is still funded by NIDA.

The Center is a nationally recognized multi-disciplinary social science institute focusing on rigorous scientific investigation into the effects, predictors, and prevention of social behaviors whose abuse carries health costs. Here are some of the projects or areas of study recently completed or currently on-going at the Center:

• Smoking Cessation

• Alcohol Abuse and Prevention

• Drug Abuse and Prevention

• Youth Risk Behavior Survey

• School Health Education Profiles

• HIV/AIDS

• Institutional Research Analysis and Assessment

• School Health

• Pediatric Mental Health

• GIS and Spatial Analyses of Health Risks and Assets

• Kentucky Youth Survey

• Prevention Program Assessments

• Program Assessments

• School Violence Prevention

• Sensation-Seeking Indicators and Treatment Models for Substance Abuse

• Substance Abuse Prevention

• Teen Violence Prevention

The Center is grant-supported and annually conducts a number of research projects on the local, state, and national levels for public and private agencies. The Center for Prevention Research is sponsored by the University of Kentucky, one of only 42 Carnegie Research I institution in North America. Organizationally, the Center is part of the University of Kentucky College of Public Health. As a multi-disciplinary research institute, the Center employs experts drawn from the fields of public health, agriculture, geography, planning, psychology, sociology, and other social science fields.