Society for Prevention Research 28th Annual Meeting
CALL FOR PRECONFERENCE WORKSHOPS

28th Annual Meeting
Why Context Matters: Towards a Place-Based Prevention Science

July 21 - 23, 2020
Hyatt Regency, Virtual Meeting,
Preconference Workshops, May 26, 2019

Submission Deadline: October 31, 2019

The Program Committee of the Society for Prevention Research (SPR) invites proposals for preconference workshops to be held May 26, 2020, the first day of the SPR Annual Meeting. The workshops are primarily pedagogical, with hands-on instruction and specific learning objectives. Past workshops have provided continuing education in innovative quantitative methods; assembled experts to share theoretical perspectives, research findings and real-world implementation experiences that can inform prevention programs; and presented information helpful in advocacy and/or grant writing efforts. These are intended as examples to stimulate creative thinking about workshops. The Program Committee encourages workshop proposals on any topic, as long as the workshop’s objective is to enable the audience to gain skills and knowledge that are important to prevention scientists.

Workshops typically are a full day in length. SPR will provide a suitable room and audiovisual equipment, and will reproduce handouts if they are provided far enough in advance.

SPR will hold four to five workshops on a diverse set of topics. The selected topics will be informed by the work of the SPR Training Needs Assessment Task Force (TNATF), which completed a two-year project during which it surveyed the SPR membership and other stakeholders on the training needs of prevention scientists. The TNATF then developed a three-year plan based on the most highly endorsed training needs according to the survey (click here for three-year plan). Based on the work of the task force the following training needs have been identified as priorities for the 2020 preconference workshops: (1) understanding the role of context in shaping health behavior, (2) theories underlying the mechanisms of health disparities, and (3) developing cultural competency and community collaborations.

In addition to the areas identified by the TNATF, we are also interested in proposals that address the ethical issues in bringing prevention programs into community settings, i.e., how to develop ethical partnerships with historically disadvantaged communities, how to ethically conduct evaluations of prevention programs in the community, issues of privacy in an era of big data access, etc. (https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11121-018-0912-7 )

Thus, in addition to general proposals we are also looking for proposals related to the three TNATF-identified areas and ethical issues in prevention science.

Workshop proposals will be evaluated using the following criteria: Clarity of workshop objectives; value of the topic to the field of prevention science; relevant to the conference theme(s) and/or TNATF-identified theme(s); likelihood that the content and methods of the workshop will impart knowledge successfully; relevant background of presenters; lack of redundancy with recently presented workshops (pending-link to list of prior workshops).

Propose a Preconference Workshop: