New UofSC research center aims to improve child well-being

Prestigious NIH grant will support interdisciplinary Research Center for Child Well-Being

The University of South Carolina is now home to an interdisciplinary center focused on child well-being and impactful research aimed at improving the lives of children.

The Research Center for Child Well-Being will test prevention strategies to improve children’s health and development. The preventive interventions will draw on a range of influences such as families, schools and community settings. The center will be led by principal investigator and center director Ron Prinz, a Carolina Distinguished Professor of Psychology in the College of Arts and Sciences. Michael Beets, a Carolina Distinguished Professor in the Arnold School of Public Health’s Department of Exercise Science, will serve as the center’s associate director.

The center is supported by an $11.16 million grant from the National Institutes of Health. It marks South Carolina’s third prestigious NIH Center of Biomedical Research Excellence (COBRE).

“It is so exciting to welcome a third COBRE to UofSC,” University of South Carolina Vice President for Research Prakash Nagarkatti says. “This major award of more than $10 million is a credit to our research enterprise, and to the dedicated researchers – Dr. Prinz, Dr. Beets and their collaborators – who worked so hard to make it a reality. Our strong focus on interdisciplinary research makes the University of South Carolina fertile ground for major research centers of excellence, and I look forward to watching the Research Center for Child Well-Being flourish in the years to come.”

The interdisciplinary center, with its focus on prevention strategies to improve child well-being, will involve at least 17 faculty researchers from five departments across four UofSC colleges and schools, and an external collaborator with the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. These researchers will conduct prevention research aimed dually at reducing risk for mental, emotional and behavioral problems and decreasing unhealthy lifestyle behaviors such as physical inactivity and excessive screen time in children ages 2 to 10.

The center’s research has implications not only for the well-being of children but also for academic success, health, behavior in adolescence and long-term outcomes in adulthood related to mental health, substance misuse and physical disorders such as obesity, diabetes and cardiovascular disorders.

“The centerpiece will be prevention research pertaining to children ages 2 to 10,” Prinz says. “We are fortunate to have a talented team of prevention scientists, supported by expert methodologists and implementation staff, to test and improve promising strategies involving parents, schools and community resources for the benefit of children.”

In addition to its research goals, the Research Center for Child Well-Being aims to support the development of early career faculty researchers in fields related to children’s social, emotional and behavioral health and well-being. By engaging senior faculty as mentors to provide support and guidance to talented early stage faculty, the center will work to build up a new generation of researchers who will continue making breakthroughs on prevention to benefit children well into the future.

By examining and promoting children’s health and well-being from a holistic perspective that factors in mental, emotional, behavioral and physical health aspects, the center will be positioned to make major breakthroughs to impact children’s lives worldwide. And, by investing in South Carolina’s early career faculty with decades of research excellence ahead of them, the center will greatly benefit the children of South Carolina.