Traditional approaches for evaluating the impact of scientific research – mainly scholarship (i.e., publications, presentations) and grant funding – fail to capture the full extent of contributions that come from larger scientific initiatives. The Translational Science Benefits Model (TSBM) was developed to support more comprehensive evaluations of scientific endeavors, especially research designed to translate scientific discoveries into innovations in clinical or public health practice and policy-level changes. Here, we present the domains of the TSBM, including how it was expanded by researchers within the Implementation Science Centers in Cancer Control (ISC3) program supported by the National Cancer Institute. Next, we describe five studies supported by the Penn ISC3, each focused on testing implementation strategies informed by behavioral economics to reduce key practice gaps in the context of cancer care and identify how each study yields broader impacts consistent with TSBM domains. These indicators include Capacity Building, Methods Development (within the Implementation Field) and Rapid Cycle Approaches, implementing Software Technologies, and improving Health Care Delivery and Health Care Accessibility. The examples highlighted here can help guide other similar scientific initiatives to conceive and measure broader scientific impact to fully articulate the translation and effects of their work at the population level.

Impaired facial emotion recognition is a transdiagnostic risk factor for a range of psychiatric disorders. Childhood behavioral difficulties and parental emotional environment have been independently associated with impaired emotion recognition; however, no study has examined the contribution of these factors in conjunction. We measured recognition of negative (sad, fear, anger), neutral, and happy facial expressions in 135 children aged 5–7 years referred by their teachers for behavioral problems. Parental emotional environment was assessed for parental expressed emotion (EE) – characterized by negative comments, reduced positive comments, low warmth, and negativity towards their child – using the 5-minute speech sample. Child behavioral problems were measured using the teacher-informant Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ). Child behavioral problems and parental EE were independently associated with impaired recognition of negative facial expressions specifically. An interactive effect revealed that the combination of both factors was associated with the greatest risk for impaired recognition of negative faces, and in particular sad facial expressions. No relationships emerged for the identification of happy facial expressions. This study furthers our understanding of multidimensional processes associated with the development of facial emotion recognition and supports the importance of early interventions that target this domain.

Children who are adopted from care are more likely to experience enduring emotional and behavioral problems across development; however, adoptees’ trajectories of mental health problems and factors that impact their trajectories are poorly understood. Therefore, we used multilevel growth analyses to chart adoptees’ internalizing and externalizing problems across childhood, and examined the associations between preadoptive risk and postadoptive protective factors on their trajectories. This was investigated in a prospective longitudinal study of case file records (N = 374) and questionnaire-based follow-ups (N = 96) at approximately 5, 21, and 36 months postadoptive placement. Preadoptive adversity (indexed by age at placement, days in care, and number of adverse childhood experiences) was associated with higher internalizing and externalizing scores; the decrease in internalizing scores over childhood was accelerated for those exposed to lower levels of preadoptive risk. Warm adoptive parenting was associated with a marked reduction in children's internalizing and externalizing problems over time. Although potentially limited by shared methods variance and lack of variability in parental warmth scores, these findings demonstrate the deleterious impact of preadoptive risk and the positive role of exceptionally warm adoptive parenting on children's trajectories of mental health problems and have relevance for prevention and intervention strategies.

Early identification of problems with psychosocial stress regulation is important for supporting mental and physical health. However, we currently lack knowledge about when reliable individual differences in stress-responsive physiology emerge and which aspects of maternal behavior determine the unfolding of infants' stress responses. Knowledge of these processes is further limited by analytic approaches that do not account for multiple levels of within- and between-family effects. In a low-risk sample (n = 100 dyads), we observed infant cortisol and mother/infant behavior during regular play and stress sessions longitudinally from age 1 to 3, and used a three-level model to separately examine variability in infant cortisol trajectories within sessions, across years, and across infants. Stable individual differences in hypothalamus–pituitary–adrenal axis regulation were observed in the first 3 years of life. Infants of less sensitive and more intrusive mothers manifested stress sensitization, that is, elevated cortisol levels during and following stress exposure, a profile related to behavioral distress. These findings have important practical implications, suggesting that children at risk for long-term stress dysregulation may be identified in the earliest years of life.

Stress has been shown to have a causal effect on risk for depression. We investigated the role of cognitive ability as a moderator of the effect of stressful life events on depressive symptoms and whether this varied by gender. Data were analyzed in two adolescent data sets: one representative community sample aged 11–12 years (n = 460) and one at increased familial risk of depression aged 9–17 years (n = 335). In both data sets, a three-way interaction was found whereby for girls, but not boys, higher cognitive ability buffered the association between stress and greater depressive symptoms. The interaction was replicated when the outcome was a diagnosis of major depressive disorder. This buffering effect in girls was not attributable to coping efficacy. However, a small proportion of the variance was accounted for by sensitivity to environmental stressors. Results suggest that this moderating effect of cognitive ability in girls is largely attributable to greater available resources for cognitive operations that offer protection against stress-induced reductions in cognitive processing and cognitive control which in turn reduces the likelihood of depressive symptomatology.

Extremes in fearful temperament have long been associated with later psychopathology and risk pathways. Whereas fearful children are inhibited and anxious and avoid novel events, fearless individuals are disinhibited and more likely to engage in aggressive behavior. However, very few studies have examined fear in infants from a multimethod and prospective longitudinal perspective. This study had the following objectives: to examine behavioral, maternal reported, and physiological indices of fearful temperament in infancy, together with their relations and stability over time; and to establish whether early indices of fear predict fear later in toddlerhood. We also examined the association between behavioral and physiological measures of fear and guilt and whether fear in infancy predicts guilt in toddlers. Finally, we investigated infant risk factors for later psychopathology. We recorded skin conductance level (SCL) and heart rate (HR) and observed children's responses during a Laboratory Temperament Assessment Battery fear paradigm across the first 3 years of life and during a guilt induction procedure at age 3 (N = 70). The results indicate that different measures of infant fear were associated across time. Observed fearlessness in infancy predicted observed fearlessness and low levels of SCL arousal to fear and guilt in toddlers. Low levels of HR and SCL to fear in infancy predicted low levels of physiological arousal to the same situation and to guilt 2 years later. Fear and guilt were significantly associated across measures. Finally, toddlers with clinically significant internalizing problems at age 3 were already notably more fearful in Year 1 as reflected by their significantly higher HR levels. The results indicated that assessments of children in infancy are predictive of how these children react 2 years later and therefore lend support to the idea that the emotional thermostat is set in the first 3 years of life. They also showed, for the first time, that infant fear is a predictor of guilt, which is an emotion that develops later. The implications of these findings for our understanding of developmental psychopathology are discussed.

The study of twins and their families provides a highly useful tool for disentangling the genetic and environmental origins of traits. The Cardiff Study of All Wales and North West of England Twins (CaStANET) has followed children and adolescents over time into early adulthood, assessing a wide range of aspects of behavior and psychopathology using self-, parent and teacher reports. Four main waves of data collection have taken place to date, which have provided a wealth of information on the contributions of genetic and environmental risk factors to the psychological health of young people. This article first describes the CaStANET register and subsequently presents some of the findings that have emerged from this resource, with a focus on depression and anxiety, chronic fatigue, attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, conduct problems and prosocial behavior. We describe in somewhat more detail the 4th wave of data collection, which has recently been completed and has provided us with extensive information on substance use and problem use as well as associated risk factors in the twins and their families, including longitudinal data on conduct problems and the relations between family members. Because of the wealth of data already collected and the opportunity for genetically informative analyses over time, CaStANET provides a valuable resource for understanding the complexities of the psychological development of young people.