AEC Fellows: Sheppard G. Kellam

Sheppard G. Kellam American Institute for Research Email: skellam@air.org

Sheppard G. Kellam, M.D. is a public health psychiatrist who has played a major role in establishing concepts and methods for prevention science, as well as contributing to knowledge about early risk factors and their malleability.  Recognizing the vital need to bridge the traditional gap between public education and public health prevention research, in March of 2000 he accepted an invitation of the American Institutes for Research to come full time to AIR and develop a new Center for Integrating Education and Prevention Research in Schools (Ed/Prev).  As part of the early work of this new Center, he leads the follow-up of the 2,311 first graders from the first generation of Baltimore population based randomized prevention trials, now aged 19 to 22 and making the transition to adulthood.  Working closely with the Baltimore City Public School System (BCPSS), he and the Ed/Prev team are in the middle of a five year program, the third generation of Baltimore randomized prevention trials, seamlessly integrating education and preventive interventions into a Whole Day program for first grade classrooms.  This major population based randomized field trial is supported by NIDA, with contributions from NICHD.  His theoretical, methodological, and substantive contributions began with the early intervention studies in Woodlawn, an African American community on the South Side of Chicago, from 1963 through 1982.  He and colleagues coined the name developmental epidemiology, i.e., mapping the variation in developmental paths leading to health or disorders in defined populations. This work was done in close harmony with a board of Woodlawn community organization leaders.  It led to developing and implementing a developmental epidemiological prevention research strategy that precisely aimed interventions at early risk factors and, using randomized designs, examined not only main effects but the variation in impact on developmental paths and outcomes.  From 1982-1993 Dr. Kellam was Chair of the Department of Mental Hygiene in the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and is now Professor Emeritus.  During this period, in partnership with the Baltimore City Public School System and with Morgan State University, he led two previous generations of population based randomized preventive field trials in Baltimore.  He was founding director of the NIMH Hopkins Prevention Research Center that supported this earlier work.  In 1996 he was awarded the Rema Lapouse Award for lifetime contributions to public health and prevention science by the Mental Health, Epidemiology, and Statistics Sections of the American Public Health Association.  In 1999 the World Federation for Mental Health presented him their Distinguished Public Mental Health Award for his work in advancing the science for prevention of mental and behavioral disorders.  He was President of the Society for Prevention Research from 1998-2001.  In 2004 he was elected to be a Fellow of the Academy of Experimental Criminology.

 

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