Washington State Institute for Public Policy

Raising Healthy Children
Public Health & Prevention: School-based
Literature review updated June 2016.

Raising Healthy Children is a long-term school-based prevention program designed to increase students' bonds to school and prevent problem behaviors. The intervention begins in grade 1 and continues through grade 7. Teachers in those grades attend workshops in classroom management, cooperative learning methods and strategies to promote student reading, participation and interpersonal skills. In grades 4-6, the program provides after-school tutoring and includes family participation workshops, after-school homework clubs, summer camp, and retreats for students. This study followed students who began the program in 1st and 2nd grade and measured until grade 10. The program is based on the model used for the Seattle Social Development Project, which is a shorter intervention.

META-ANALYSIS	CITATIONS

**Meta-analysis** is a statistical method to combine the results from separate studies on a program, policy, or topic in order to estimate its effect on an outcome. WSIPP systematically evaluates all credible evaluations we can locate on each topic. The **outcomes** measured are the types of program impacts that were measured in the research literature (for example, crime or educational attainment). **Treatment N** represents the total number of individuals or units in the treatment group across the included studies.

An **effect size** (ES) is a standard metric that summarizes the degree to which a program or policy affects a measured outcome. If the effect size is positive, the outcome increases. If the effect size is negative, the outcome decreases.

**Adjusted effect sizes** are used to calculate the benefits from our benefit cost model. WSIPP may adjust effect sizes based on methodological characteristics of the study. For example, we may adjust effect sizes when a study has a weak research design or when the program developer is involved in the research. The magnitude of these adjustments varies depending on the topic area.

WSIPP may also adjust the second ES measurement. Research shows the magnitude of some effect sizes decrease over time. For those effect sizes, we estimate outcome-based adjustments which we apply between the **first time ES is estimated** and the **second time ES is estimated**. We also report the **unadjusted effect size** to show the effect sizes before any adjustments have been made. More details about these adjustments can be found in our Technical Documentation.
Meta-Analysis of Program Effects
Outcomes measured	Primary or secondary participant	No. of effect sizes	Treatment N	Adjusted effect sizes (ES) and standard errors (SE) used in the benefit-cost analysis						Unadjusted effect size (random effects model)
				First time ES is estimated			Second time ES is estimated			Unadjusted effect size (random effects model)
				ES	SE	Age	ES	SE	Age	ES	p-value
Alcohol use in high school	Primary	1	480	-0.018	0.078	15	-0.018	0.078	18	-0.049	0.535
Cannabis use in high school	Primary	1	480	-0.035	0.088	15	-0.035	0.088	18	-0.093	0.293
Disruptive behavior disorder symptoms	Primary	1	497	-0.018	0.065	9	-0.008	0.034	12	-0.047	0.476
Smoking in high school	Primary	1	480	-0.017	0.105	15	-0.017	0.105	18	-0.044	0.677
Traffic accident	Primary	1	283	0.013	0.116	17	n/a	n/a	n/a	0.035	0.785

Citations Used in the Meta-Analysis

Brown, E.C., Catalano, R.F., Fleming, C.B., Haggerty, K.P., & Abbott, R.D. (2005). Adolescent substance use outcomes in the Raising Healthy Children project: a two-part latent growth curve analysis. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 73(4), 699-710.

Catalano, R.F., J.J. Mazza, T.W. Harachi, R.D. Abbott, K.P. Haggerty, and C.B. Fleming. (2003). Raising healthy children through enhancing social development in elementary school: Results after 1.5 years. Journal of School Psychology, 41(2), 143-164.

Haggerty, K., Fleming, C., Catalano, R., Harachi, T., & Abbott, R. (2006). Raising healthy children: Examining the impact of promoting healthy driving behavior within a social development intervention. Prevention Science, 7(3), 257-267.