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National Crime Victims Center > Grants & Publications > current_grant_abstracts > Youth Violence Exposure: A National Longitudinal Survey 

Development and Evaluation of a Web based Intervention for Disaster Victims

Principal Investigator: Kenneth J. Ruggiero, Ph.D.  <bio sketch>  < e-mail>
Funding Source:  National Institutes of Health/National Institutes of Mental Health (NIH/NIMH)
Dates of Project:  8/07 - 7/10

The primary purposes of the project are to:

  • refine and update existing mental health intervention modules based on recent research as well as data from the feasibility study
  • enhance the technical aspects of the intervention
  • strengthen evaluation components
  • conduct a randomized controlled population-based pilot study (n=2000) to examine the preliminary efficacy of the intervention

Specific aims for development are:

  1. To refine and update the mental health modules of the Web intervention based on an updated review of the empirical literature and data from our feasibility study.  Educational content and formatting will be enhanced, interactive case examples and activities will be added, and technical aspects will be improved based on user feedback from the feasibility study as well as research on best practices in distance education and e-learning.
  2. To strengthen the knowledge-change component of our intervention within each module.  Evaluation measures will allow us to examine the extent to which immediate knowledge change occurs (pre-post), and will facilitate examination of knowledge retention over time during the population-based pilot study.
  3. To develop materials needed to assess the efficacy of the Web intervention via the population-based pilot study.  Materials will include: baseline and six-month follow-up interviews assessing mental health constructs targeted by the intervention, retention of knowledge gains over time, and barriers to accessing and utilizing the intervention; as well as, a comparison Web intervention (assessment-only condition) against which the experimental Web intervention will be compared.
  4. To track costs and benefits associated with development, management, and delivery of the Web intervention, and to construct cost-effectiveness ratios.
  5. To develop an R01 proposal to examine the efficacy of the intervention in the aftermath of a future disaster or mass violence incident.  Data from the proposed population-based pilot will guide further revisions to the Web intervention in preparation for a large-scale post-disaster efficacy trial.

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