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Background: Although positive youth development (PYD) programs have demonstrated effectiveness in improving adolescent reproductive health outcomes, there is a lack of evidence on effective school-based interventions designed especially for high school settings. This study examined the efficacy of Peer Group Connection (PGC-HS), a school-based PYD program, in improving sexual health outcomes for high school participants. Methods: A total of 1523 ninth-grade students at 18 schools were randomly assigned to be offered PGC-HS or a classes-as-usual control condition during 2016 to 2017 and 2017 to 2018 school years. Impacts were assessed on three confirmatory and 6 exploratory outcomes via self-reported participant questionnaire data collected at the beginning of 10th grade. Results: Although the offer of PGC-HS had no statistically detectable effect on confirmatory behavioral outcomes (sexual initiation, frequency of sex, and number of sexual partners) at 10th grade follow-up, causal impact estimates indicate that PGC-HS participants were less likely than control participants to ever have had vaginal sex. PGC-HS participants also scored higher on decision-making skills and perceived connection to peer connectedness. Conclusions: Results suggest that by building social and emotional skills and helping students form supportive peer relationships, PGC-HS may encourage students to make healthier choices and avoid risky behaviors during a critical period in high school, thus, reducing the risk of pregnancy.

Despite the increase in federal tiered evidence initiatives that require the use of rigorous evaluation designs, such as randomized experiments, there has been limited guidance in the evaluation literature on practical strategies to implement such studies successfully. This paper provides lessons learned in executing experiments in applied settings, such as schools, juvenile justice agencies, mental health clinics, reproductive health clinics, and job centers. To promote successful study implementation, evaluators must understand study roles, select suitable partners, and employ appropriate partnership models. In this article, we describe partner types and study roles, concretely illustrate how partnerships might be structured, discuss specific strategies to assess implementation partner capacity and maintain partner engagement, and consider how an evaluator can leverage the skills and resources of study partners to improve participant recruitment, enrollment, and retention. While the lessons are drawn from our experiences conducting 10 experimental studies, some may also apply to non-experimental evaluations.

This paper summarizes results from an impact study that employed a randomized controlled trial to estimate the efficacy of a cross-age peer mentor program designed to prevent school dropout during the transition from middle to high school. We present findings from the intent-to-treat (ITT) analyses, which included 1,351 ninth-grade students, alongside those of two different methods that estimate the complier average causal effect (CACE) of participating in the program. Although the confirmatory study, which investigated impact on attendance and credit accrual in ninth grade, was null, ITT analyses on exploratory outcomes indicate modest, yet potentially meaningful program impact on ninth-grade outcomes of discipline, school attachment, and expectations of degree attainment across varying dosage levels. CACE estimates also suggest that a threshold level of program participation broadens the program's impact on additional exploratory academic achievement and social and emotional learning outcomes. Given the adverse effects of the transition to high school, this promising evidence indicates that the cross-age peer mentoring intervention could be an effective strategy for high schools to implement that leverages existing staff and students. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research on the efficacy of mediated suicide awareness campaigns is limited. The impacts of a state-wide media campaign on call volumes to a national hotline were analyzed to determine if the advertisements have raised awareness of the hotline. We use a quasi-experimental design to compare call volumes from ZIP codes where and when the campaign is active with those where and when the campaign is not active. Multilevel model estimates suggest that the campaign appears to have significantly and substantially increased calls to the hotline. Results from this study add evidence to the growing public health literature that suggests that mediated campaigns can be an effective tool for raising audience awareness.

This article presents the research findings of an evaluation of the academic impacts of 21st Century Learning Centers (CCLC) in Louisiana. Using quasi-experimental design, the article operationalizes academic achievement as core and subject test performance on nationally standardized pre- and posttests (Iowa Test of Basic Skills; ITBS). Based on previous research and evaluation requirements, the article (a) employs outcomes of interest to policymakers (standardized test scores); (b) uses program attendance as a key independent variable; (c) uses efficient methods to control for extraneous impact on the dependent variable; and (d) focuses the evaluation on a specific group of student--at-risk children in Louisiana. Findings indicate that the 21st CCLC program is having a positive academic impact on participants who attend the program for 30 days or more. Further, impacts are shared across specific grantee programs, specific subjects, and subgroupings of students. Finally, the study finds that intensity of attendance is positively related to academic impact. (Contains 2 figures, 5 tables and 12 footnotes. Overview of Programs is appended.)

Who and what influences the issues that policymakers attend to is central to the question of how power is exercised in politics. This study builds upon research by Soroka that proposes an expanded model of agenda setting as a means to examine how the media influences issue salience for the public and policymakers. It expands on Soroka's model by investigating the hypothesis that photographic attention to environmental issues in the news media influences issue salience for the mass public and governmental decision makers. There is little research that substantiates the idea, but it is widely believed that photographs have influence on the policy agenda. I use a dynamic, multidirectional model to estimate whether the volume of news photographs, in addition to news stories, influences issue salience among the mass public and policymakers. Data are longitudinal and measures of attention are operationalized as the number of congressional committee meetings, concern for the environment as a 'most important problem' in public opinion polls, environmental news stories in The New York Times, and environmental news photographs in Time magazine. Results suggest that photographic attention does influence environmental policy agenda dynamics in some counterintuitive ways that are distinct from the effects of the news stories. While news stories appear to increase public attention toward the environment, they have little influence on policymaker attention. News photographs, on the other hand, appear to drive congressional committee attention but elicit an ambivalent public response. KEY WORDS: agenda setting, environmental policy, news media, photographic agenda, Granger causality, vector autoregression, seemingly unrelated regression, Introduction Identifying who and what has influence over the problems policymakers attend to is central to the question of how power is exercised in politics (Baumgartner & Jones, 1993; Cobb [...]

Research on the efficacy of mediated suicide awareness campaigns is limited. The impacts of a state-wide media campaign on call volumes to a national hotline were analyzed to determine if the advertisements have raised awareness of the hotline. We use a quasi-experimental design to compare call volumes from ZIP codes where and when the campaign is active with those where and when the campaign is not active. Multilevel model estimates suggest that the campaign appears to have significantly and substantially increased calls to the hotline. Results from this study add evidence to the growing public health literature that suggests that mediated campaigns can be an effective tool for raising audience awareness.

The design of biomimetic systems in the laboratory is a long‐sought goal for systems chemists and synthetic biologists alike. Fundamental to this design is the generation of self‐assembled structures capable of mimicking compartmentalisation, which includes the encapsulation of molecular cargo as well as the display of molecules on the exterior. Protein nanocompartments are fast becoming popular scaffolds for these systems due to their robust self‐assembly, ability to encapsulate non‐native cargo, and amenability to surface modifications. In this Review, we discuss the primary methods for displaying a wide array of molecular motifs on compartment surfaces. We discuss benefits and drawbacks of each type of display and examine three recent case studies wherein molecular display was a critical design element in the construction of multi‐enzyme chemical systems. The analyses and case studies presented in this Review aim to provide a critical summary of the technologies currently used for molecular display to add another dimension to the design of chemical systems and nanoreactors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The foreign correspondent, Bernard Cohen observed in his 1960's classic book 'The Press and Foreign Policy,' is 'a cosmopolitan among cosmopolitans, a man in gray flannel who ranks very high [...]