Elementary school intervention increases mental, sexual health, economic status

Fifteen years after they completed an intervention program designed to help their social development in elementary school, young adults reported better mental health, sexual health and higher educational and economic achievement than a control group of young adults who didn’t receive the intervention, according to a new study.

The data, collected when the participants were 24 and 27 years old, comes from the ongoing Seattle Social Development Project that is following a group of people from childhood into adulthood. The results are being published Tuesday in the Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine.

"We are seeing that the intervention appears to affect developmentally important outcomes that change as people age," said J. David Hawkins, lead author of the study and founding director of the University of Washington’s Social Development Research Group.

Joel Schwarz [email protected]

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