Project Lead: Jennifer Bailey, UW Social Development Research Group

Data Scientist: Joseph Hellerstein

The Social Development Research Group (SDRG) is a leader in substance use and
violence prevention research. Our research has improved lives, shaped public policy,
and strengthened communities in the U.S. and around the world. For the past four
decades, SDRG has studied the causes of many common behavior, health, and social
problems in childhood, adolescence, and adulthood. We have developed and tested
intervention programs and tools that families, schools, and communities can use to help
young people thrive and prevent problems before they start. One such program is
Communities That Care, which helps community leaders understand how young people
in a community are doing and choose programs and tools that fit their community.
Hearing directly from youth through surveys is a critical step in this process, however,
we have no centralized online data collection, analysis, and reporting hub available for
communities to use.

This Data Science and AI Accelerator project aims to build 1) an easy-to-use online
survey portal, 2) a secure data warehouse, 3) an automated data cleaning and
processing pipeline, and 4) a community-facing data analysis and visualization
dashboard to support our work with communities. This project will lower costs and
provide critical information for our partner communities; generate revenue for our
center; facilitate youth survey development and testing; permit research on how ongoing
cultural and technology changes relate to young people’s wellbeing; and support
research on best practices for using prevention programs in communities.