The Preventive Intervention Research Center for Child Health (PIRC) was founded by Ruth Stein, MD in 1983 with funding from the National Institute of Mental Health. PIRC focused first on developing and testing interventions to prevent mental health problems in children and youth with chronic health conditions. As part of that work, the Center implemented and evaluated TEEN, and won the Lela Rowland Award for Mental Health from the National Mental Health Association.
Since then, our Center has worked on child health policy, adolescent mental health, and preventing HIV/STI risk behavior. Today, our mission is to conduct nationally recognized community based intervention and pre-intervention research to enhance the health and mental health of children and adolescents, particularly in the Bronx.
During the past 10 years, we have implemented eight National Institutes of Health—funded research studies with youth in the Bronx (seven randomized trials), screened over 7,000 Bronx youth, enrolled over 3,000 into research studies and followed them over time, typically 12-18 months.
We have also conducted international projects in Zimbabwe, Kenya and in India, which involved numerous community based organizations, community health care centers, dozens of investigators, over 250 schools, three universities and over 14,000 students.