Randomized evaluation of a school-based, trauma-informed group intervention for young women in Chicago

Bhatt, Monica P.; Guryan, Jonathan; Pollack, Harold A.; Castrejon, Juan C.; Clark, Molly; Delgado-Sanchez, Lucia; Lin, Phoebe; Lubell, Max; Poehls, Cristobal Pinto; Shaver, Ben; Sumners, Makenzi

doi:10.6082/h09dq-hex58

Published June 7, 2023 | Version v1

Journal article Open

Randomized evaluation of a school-based, trauma-informed group intervention for young women in Chicago

1. University of Chicago
2. Northwestern University

This study explores whether a school-based group counseling program for adolescent girls, implemented at scale, can mitigate trauma-related mental health harms. In a randomized trial involving 3749 Chicago public high school girls, we find that participating in the program for 4 months induces a 22% reduction in posttraumatic stress disorder symptoms and find significant decreases in anxiety and depression. Results surpass widely accepted cost-effectiveness thresholds, with estimated cost-utility well below $150,000 per quality adjusted life year. We find suggestive evidence that effects persist and may even increase over time. Our results provide the first efficacy trial of such a program specifically designed for girls, conducted in America's third largest city. These findings suggest the promise of school-based programs to mitigate trauma-related harms.

Data availability

All data needed to evaluate the conclusions in the paper are present in the paper and/or the Supplementary Materials. The data used for this study are owned and controlled by the Chicago Public Schools (CPS); the Education Lab was granted limited restricted use of these data through a data use agreement between the University of Chicago and CPS that prohibits further sharing of the data. The data are defined in contract as Confidential Information that remains the exclusive property of CPS, and the University is not permitted to share any Confidential Information with a third party such as Science Advances without the previous contractual consent of CPS, even if the data are deidentified. Furthermore, the data are subject to federal privacy protections outlined in the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) that prohibits disseminating any data below a minimum standard of aggregation. The University retains the right to publish research results, however, including aggregated statistics from our research findings. Although the University is unable to directly share data from this research with Science, it is possible for researchers to directly access these same data from CPS through a standard process. Researchers may submit an external data request form on the CPS website, which can be found at the following link: www.cps.edu/about/district-data/conduct-primary-research. Our Master Data Use Agreement with the Chicago Police Department similarly prohibits our resharing of their confidential information, or the dissemination of any information without approval in accordance with the Illinois Juvenile Court Act. Our contract with CPD states that: "Data provision will include juvenile arrest and victimization records that, per the Illinois Juvenile Court Act (705 ILCS 405/5- 905-1-f), requires explicit approval from 'the judge of juvenile court and the chief executive of the agency that prepared the particular recording.' Judge M. P. Toomin of the Circuit Court of Cook County and Chicago Police Superintendent D. O. Brown both provided written support for the Requestor's receipt of juvenile arrest and victimization records. The Requestor acknowledges the confidential nature of the criminal justice information supplied and agrees that disclosure to anyone not directly identified in the approved application in any manner that allows the identification of the individuals whose records have been obtained from the CPD is totally prohibited under any circumstances. Should the Requestor engage in any project involving use of the records by a third party not mentioned in this document, the Requestor will notify the Chicago Police Department. Upon review and approval by CPD, third party use will be documented in a separate agreement signed by representatives of the third party. To conceal the identities of persons whose records are supplied to the Requestor, the Requestor agrees to refrain from copying any data not absolutely necessary for the use identified in the application or its security and retain such data only so long as is necessary to conduct the program described in the application to CPD." The University of Chicago Education Lab is required to permanently destroy identifying information in both administrative records and in any survey or health data collected during the study period upon conclusion of the study. Deidentified analytic datasets will be securely stored for a period of up to 10 years following project completion, unless data partners request destruction at an earlier date. After 10 years following study conclusion, all administrative data obtained for the study (that our study team does not have ownership of) will be permanently deleted from our servers. However, deidentified survey data that were collected by our research team during the study period will be published together with this paper.

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