Longitudinal Follow-up of Brief Parenting Interventions to Reduce Risk of Child Physical Maltreatment

Universal and broad selective parenting education programs that improve parenting skills, increase parents\' understanding of child development, and teach positive child discipline strategies can prevent use of corporal punishment and child physical maltreatment. The proposed research addresses this critical need by investigating brief, relatively low-resource intensive primary prevention parenting programs that can be disseminated widely. By reducing cumulative adverse childhood experiences, which include child physical maltreatment, these interventions are expected to reduce long-term health disparities and risks for major public health problems, such as violence, smoking, obesity, drug abuse, risky sexual behavior, mental health disorders, and heart disease, among others