1. Family influences on child and adolescent development
We investigate how parenting and family process, especially short-term daily processes, impact child and adolescent development, including mental health and substance use risk. Our goal is to identify high-impact, malleable intervention targets to keep families healthy and happy.
Selected Publications
Sloan, C.J., Cheng, C.H., Fuligni, A.J., & Kim, J.J. (2026). Mood reactivity to daily interactions with family, peers, and at school: Adolescent correlates and young adult outcomes. Journal of Research on Adolescence, 36(2), e70175. Read the paper!
Chen, L., Sloan, C.J., & Fosco, G.M. (2025). When do parents use positive parenting? Day-to-day fluctuations in parental moods and coparenting support. Journal of Family Psychology, 39(6), 873–884. Read it here!
Sloan, C.J., Forrester, E.J., Lanza, S.T., Feinberg, M.E., & Fosco, G.M. (2024). Examining profiles of convergence and divergence in reports of parental warmth: Links to adolescent developmental problems. Development and Psychopathology, 37(2), 927-943. Read it here!
Sloan C. J., Fosco, G. M., & Ram, N. (2022). Sensitization in Situ: Identifying Interindividual Differences in Adolescents’ Intraindividual Responsiveness to Daily Interparental Conflict. Family Relations, 71(2), 583-601. Read the paper!
2. Effectiveness of preventive interventions: Who benefits and why?
We investigate the effectiveness of family-based preventive interventions, with the goals of understanding mechanisms and moderators of effects. Who benefits most from family interventions, what processes are at play, and how can we make programs work better for the families who need them?
Selected Publications
Sloan, C.J., Cai, Q., & Gewirtz, A.H. (2026). Who benefits more in group-based and individual telehealth parenting programs: Moderators and distal child outcomes among military families. Research on Child and Adolescent Psychopathology, 54, 101. Read it here!
Feinberg, M.E., Fang, S., Fosco, G.M., Sloan, C.J., & Mogle, J. (2022). Long-term effects of adolescent substance use prevention on participants, partners, and their children: Intergenerational effects 15 years later during the COVID-19 pandemic. Prevention Science, 23(7), 1264-1275. Read the paper!
3. Engagement in family-based interventions
We investigate when and why families participate (or don’t participate) in preventive interventions, to understand what providers can do better. Our goal is to collect family insights and build them directly into our intervention programs, so that they work better, scale-up easier, and last longer.
Selected Publications
Sloan, C.J., Kim, J.J., Kuckertz, M., Rosenthal, L.H., & Gonzales, N.A. (under review). Caregiver-reported promoters of home practice of intervention skills.
Fosco, G.M., LoBraico, E.J., Sloan, C.J., Fang, S., & Feinberg, M.E. (2021). Family vulnerability, disruption, and chaos predict parent & child COVID-19 health-protective behavior adherence. Families, Systems, & Health, 40(1), 10-20. Read the paper!