Context Matters in Child and Family Policy
Context Matters in Child and Family Policy
Kenneth A. Dodge
Duke University
The traditional model of translation from basic laboratory science to efficacy trials to effectiveness trials to
community dissemination has flaws that arise from false assumptions that context changes little or matters lit-
tle. One of the most important findings in developmental science is that context matters, but this fact is not
sufficiently taken into account in many translation efforts. Studies reported in this special issue highlight both
the potential of systematic interventions in parenting, peer relations, and social-cognitive skills training, and
the problems that will be encountered in trying to
ing these interventions to a community context. It is
advocated that developmental scientists start from within the community context itself so that translation to
policy is only a small step. It is also advocated that this research be conducted through rigorous community
andomized controlled trials.
Kudos to the editors! In crafting this special issue,
they have implemented a process that did not
merely attract existing developmental science, it
also pushed scholars to think in new ways and to
stretch their science. The articles in this special
issue represent the best of contemporary translation
science in child development, and they set new
standards for rigor and ecological validity in the
field. At the same time, crucial questions must still
e addressed before the translation to practice and
policy is complete. I conclude that the field must
adopt a very different approach from the tradi-
tional linear, basic-research-to-policy path; instead,
we must recognize that contextual differences
etween the laboratory and the policy setting are so
great that we need to embed our research within
the community policy context itself.
On paper, the path followed in the translation
science of child development is straight and logical.
It has been adopted from the National Institutes of
Health roadmap (Zerhouni, 2003), articulated in
models of prevention of mental disorders (Coie
et al., 1992; Mrazek & Haggerty, 1994), and is well
epresented in several of the articles in this special
issue. The goal of the field of translational develop-
mental science is to use ‘‘basic science’’ to cause
population-level impact on raising healthy children,
that is, to improve the overall rates of healthy out-
comes and to decrease the overall rates of problem
outcomes for the population of children in society.
This is the standard to which citizens and policy
makers, who fund the science, can and should hold
the field accountable. So, is there any movement in
population measures across secular trends?
Unfortunately, the field has not yet demon-
strated success in the goal of population impact.
Secular trends are not encouraging. Collishaw,
Maughan, Goodman, and Pickles XXXXXXXXXXhave
eported that rates of adolescent mental health
problems, especially conduct disorder and depres-
sion, have actually increased across time in Western
societies. Twenge et al XXXXXXXXXXhave reported that
indicators of young adult psychopathology reveal a
large, 1 SD increase in most problem scores across
the past 70 years. A secondary goal of translational
science is to reduce the gaps between the rich and
poor, between the haves and the have-nots, in
important outcomes for children. Has the gap been
educed? Costello (in press) argues that the gap has
not been reduced across time and newer technolo-
gies and interventions might actually inadvertently
increase the gap.
Although numerous developmental-science-
ased interventions, including some reported in
this volume, have been found to have favorable
impact on the na
ow group of children that have
een targeted for these interventions, it is a long
step to go from those findings to population impact,
and few of these interventions have demonstrated a
positive effect on the entire population of children
in a community, as indicated by population-level
The author acknowledges the support of K05DA15226 from
the National Institute on Drug Abuse.
Co
espondence concerning this article should be addressed to
Kenneth A. Dodge, Center for Child and Family Policy, Duke
University, Durham, NC XXXXXXXXXXElectronic mail may be sent to
XXXXXXXXXX.
Child Development, January/Fe
uary 2011, Volume 82, Number 1, Pages 433–442
� 2011 The Autho
Child Development � 2011 Society for Research in Child Development, Inc.
All rights reserved XXXXXXXXXX/2011/ XXXXXXXXXX
DOI: XXXXXXXXXX/j XXXXXXXXXX01565.x
effects. He
era, Grossman, Kauh, and McMaken
(this issue) report that a well-known, evidence-
ased intervention, Big Brothers Big Sisters School-
Based Mentoring, has no positive effects after 1½
years when implemented on a large scale. What is
wrong here? I conclude that we need a fundamen-
tal shift in how translation research is conducted in
order for the goal of population impact to be
achieved.
The translation model on which most research
has been based begins with identification of a
human behavioral problem through empirical doc-
umentation and epidemiology. The model then
ings the phenomenon out of the community and
into the laboratory so that ‘‘basic science’’ can
eveal the ‘‘truths’’ of human behavior. These
truths document human problems, the develop-
mental processes that lead to them, and the way
out of them. The third step is to translate these
truths into intervention strategies that are evaluated
experimentally through rigorous trials. The transla-
tion includes identifying populations, ages, and tar-
geted social and intrapersonal processes in
development that mediate ecologically important
outcomes for children. This step also involves engi-
neering of human development and the art and
genius of intervention. The emphasis at this step is
on rigorous evaluation of efficacy of the interven-
tion to achieve its stated goals, at the admitted cost
of ecological validity. The pristine conditions of an
ideal efficacy trial (and the goal in these trials is
indeed to be as pristine as possible) rarely match
the community context of the problem being
addressed. In fact, the goal of an efficacy trial is to
test whether behavioral change can be engineered,
not whether the population is actually changed.
They are more a test of developmental theory than
an application to practice and policy. Indeed, I
argue that the contribution of these studies is more
to developmental science than to policy, because
the context differences between an efficacy trial and
community-based intervention policy are so great
that the translation is minimal. The fourth step of
translation models moves closer to community
impact through effectiveness trials, in which an
intervention that has undergone efficacy trials is
implemented and tested in real-world conditions. A
trade-off is acknowledged that sacrifices scientific
igor for community embeddedness. Finally, the
last step is a dissemination effort. Here, a random-
ized experiment is rarely attempted, and instead,
the focus is on whether the intervention can be
implemented with fidelity, sometimes at scale.
Models of translation also suggest that the path
should be two-way, that is, when the outcomes of
intervention require theories of human develop-
ment to be modified or highlight areas where
future truths should be unearthed by basic science.
This translation model has been an apparent suc-
cess according to the scientists, as demonstrated by
the many articles in this special issue. But it has
fallen short of leading to population-level change in
aising healthy children for the citizenry, as Shon-
koff and Bales (this issue) note. I argue that three
e
ors are made in the assumptions in the transla-
tion model that reduce its impact on population
outcomes. The first false assumption is that findings
eadily generalize across contexts, particularly from
the laboratory context to the community context.
They do not. The lack of generalization should not
come as a surprise, given that one of the most
important findings from basic science is that context
matters, and many studies of children occur in uni-
versity communities and Institutional Review Board
esearch contexts that differ from the contexts of
policy and community-level intervention. A second
false assumption is that the conclusions of labora-
tory studies are free from context factors that would
constrain the conclusions made by the scientist.
Every behavior is embedded in a context. Finally, it
is falsely assumed that the rigors that are required
for randomized experiments must be sacrificed in
esearch in a community context. This last assump-
tion leads to relatively little high-quality research
on community processes and population outcomes
for children.
I argue that a paradigm shift is necessary in real-
izing that all behavior is embedded in a context.
Behavior is to context as figure is to ground. No
one context is more or less ‘‘real’’ than any othe
context, but some contexts are more ecologically
important than others. ‘‘Pulling’’ a phenomenon
out of its natural context into the laboratory context
for purer scrutiny runs the risk of losing the phe-
nomenon altogether because it gets divorced from
the contextual circumstances that define the phe-
nomenon. The common framing of translation mod-
els assumes that there must be a trade-off between
scientific rigor and real-world conditions. ‘‘Basic’’
science
ings a phenomenon into the laboratory in
order to achieve the greatest rigor possible in the
least ecologically valid conditions possible. The far-
ther one moves down the translation path, the less
pristinely rigorous is the science being conducted,
ut the presumed gain is an increased focus on the
community context. Translation science supposedly
moves from the rigor and purity of basic science to
the messy reality of the community context.
434 Dodge
The problem with this model is that it just does
not work. When a phenomenon is taken out of its
context, it becomes a different phenomenon. Trans-
lation often fails. A related problem is that the care-
fully constructed, basic-science-based, intervention
programs and efficacy studies that establish the
potential of these interventions have rarely, if ever,
led to population-level changes when implemented
at larger scale in the context of a community.
I will illustrate reasons for this gap in translation
elow, describe ways in which the studies in this
issue set a new standard for rigor for research
within community settings (as well as ways in
which some studies still fall short), and then offer a
different model for future inquiry, in which rigor-
ous science is conducted within the contexts that
have the most meaning.
Some of the Successes of Translation Science . . .
and the Challenges That Remain
Context Matters in How Children Develop
The studies in this special issue highlight the
important but complicated roles that various con-
texts play in children’s development. Fiese, Winter,
and Botti (this issue) peek into family homes to
observe that the family mealtime context is related
to a child’s asthma symptom severity. The findings
are sensible. Ga
er, Ciesla, McCauley, Diamond,
and Schloredt (this issue) find that a parent’s
changing level of depressive symptoms predict a
child’s level of depressive symptoms, a family con-
text effect that is likely mediated by specific parent-
ing behaviors.
Gue
a, Williams, and Sadek (this issue) find that
a negative school context (e.g., nonsupport for social
elationships, norms for high aggression) predicts a
child’s bullying behaviors. Fa
ell, Henry, Mays, and
Schoeny (this issue) also