Before the end of high school, more than half of all adolescents will use an illicit drug, about a quarter will meet the criteria for depression, and many others will engage in behaviors such as delinquency and violence. Guiding Good Choices is a universal evidence-based anticipatory guidance curriculum for parents of early adolescents that has been shown to reduce adolescent alcohol, tobacco, and marijuana use; depression; and delinquent behavior. Evidence-based parenting interventions shown to prevent these behavioral health concerns could improve adolescent health trajectories if implemented widely in pediatric primary care.

Guiding Good Choices for Health (GCC4H): Testing Feasibility and Effectiveness of Universal Parent-Focused Prevention in Three Healthcare Systems is a cluster-randomized trial that will partner with pediatric primary care clinics to offer the training in three large, integrated healthcare systems serving socioeconomically diverse families.

“We already have an effective intervention, so we’re not trying to test whether it works or not; it’s really about getting the intervention into a population.”  —Richard Catalano, PhD, co-Principal Investigator of the GGC4H trial.

GGC4H is led by Richard Catalano, PhD, Margaret Kuklinski, PhD, and Stacy Sterling, DrPH, with support from the National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health. Read more about GGC4H.