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Richard Catalano and David Hawkins receive lifetime achievement award in prevention science

Sustained applause greeted Richard Catalano as he accepted the 2012 Lifetime Achievement Award for himself and colleague David Hawkins from the Society for Prevention Science at the group’s annual meeting in Washington D.C. on May 29, 2012.

“Thank you for giving us both this award,” said Catalano. “This is one of the most heartfelt things to happen… to me and my partner of the last 33 years. We’re able to support each other and we’re able to argue with each other. I think this challenging thinking is one of the things that keeps us both on our toes and contributing to prevention science.”

In citing their work, the Society for Prevention Science noted that both Hawkins and Catalano are leaders in introducing the concepts of risk- and protective-focused prevention strategies to the field of substance abuse and delinquency prevention. They developed tools that are currently used by communities to audit and determine their own inventories of risk and protective factors. These strategies and tools are used in a prevention planning system called Communities That Care, which is presently being evaluated in the United States in 24 communities across seven states and has been used in eight countries throughout the world.

The Society for Prevention Research is a 20-year-old organization dedicated to advancing scientific investigation on the etiology and prevention of social, physical and mental health, and academic problems and on the translation of that information to promote health and wellbeing. The multi-disciplinary membership of SPR is international and includes scientists, practitioners, advocates, administrators, and policy makers who value the conduct and dissemination of prevention science worldwide.