UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Roughly 2 million children experience maltreatment each year in the United States and face the possibility of a lifetime of mental, emotional, behavioral and physical health difficulties. With more than $124 billion spent in the U.S. on child maltreatment-related costs, the importance of mitigating damaging outcomes for victims cannot be overstated. There is a critical need for new research to identify health and developmental solutions, mobilize public investment in child maltreatment prevention and treatment, accelerate science to practice, and spark dynamic system-wide change.
Recognizing this importance, The Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, the NICHD, part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), recently completed a competitive process to fund for the first time ever, an academic institution to function as a “Capstone.” Penn State has been selected based on scientific merit to establish the Center for Healthy Children. The award of $7.7 million over five years will support the center as a national resource for child maltreatment research and training. To further this effort, Penn State has committed $3.4 million in funds, to total more than $11 million.
“Maltreatment is a critical issue requiring tangible solutions. There needs to be a heightened focus on raising the bar for research in this area so we can develop specific ways to prevent maltreatment and promote health and well-being for survivors,” said Jennie Noll, the principal investigator of the NIH award, professor of human development and family studies in Penn State's College of Health and Human Development, and director of the Child Maltreatment Solutions Network, a unit of Penn State’s Social Science Research Institute. “We don't yet have a comprehensive understanding of exactly why maltreatment leads to such dire consequences for some, while others may exhibit remarkable resilience. This is why it is vitally important that we identify the mechanisms involved in these health disparities."
The knowledge generated by this research will allow scientists, in conjunction with advocates and practitioners, to develop and implement novel, targeted and optimized interventions that will maximize the ability to impact lives and have relevance nationwide and throughout the world.
This Center grant augments the initial investment Penn State made in 2012 to create and support a network of researchers who have since come together at the University to solve the complex problem of child maltreatment. Through this investment, the network hired nine faculty members across five colleges, each working from distinct, yet complementary, angles in a highly unique trans-disciplinary effort.
“We recruited the best and the brightest researchers to Penn State to create a network and we continue our commitment to work on this critical issue by contributing $3.4 million in support of the new NIH center,” said Penn State President Eric J. Barron. “The expertise, passion and dedication of our researchers are unparalleled and this grant exemplifies our strength in successful interdisciplinary collaborations, with leading experts from across the University.”