The Annenberg Foundation Funds Institute on Adolescent Risk
The Annenberg Foundation has created a
$27.5 million endowment, which promises to make a difference
in the lives of young people at risk. A new Institute for Adolescent
Risk Communication at the University of Pennsylvania's Annenberg
Public Policy Center will be established using $25 million.
The additional $2.5 million will establish the Walter and Leonore
Annenberg Chair for the Director of the Public Policy Center
at the Annenberg School for Communication.
| Leonore C. Annenberg, HON'85 and
Walter H. Annenberg, W'31, HON'66 |
|
UThe new Institute will feature a unique
cross-disciplinary approach to developing effective mass communications
programs to address a major social concern - the propensity
of adolescents to engage in a variety of risky behaviors. "This
extraordinary gift will help us find new ways to reduce the
incidence of high-risk behavior among teenagers and ensure that
they become healthy, happy, and productive adults," said President
Judith Rodin.
The Institute will focus on four critical
areas—tobacco use; drug use; high-risk sexual behavior;
and suicidal behavior—and draw upon faculty in medicine,
social work, nursing, arts and sciences, and law.
"With our nation increasingly focused
on minimizing adolescent risk, this new Institute is poised
to advance research in the field and contribute to a better
understanding of the issues and treatments," said Leonore Annenberg,
Vice Chairman of The Annenberg Foundation. "Walter and I are
pleased to be able to make these grants, which affirm our confidence
in the work of the Public Policy Center and its leadership."
During the past decade, the Public Policy
Center has played an important role in evaluating and developing
many mass media campaigns that attempt to alter the disposition
of adolescents to engage in risky behaviors. Major ad campaigns
have urged teens to avoid drugs and tobacco, use seat belts,
not drink and drive, and stay away from behaviors that can lead
to sexually transmitted diseases.
Kathleen Hall Jamieson, Dean of the Annenberg
School for Communication and Director of the Annenberg Public
Policy Center, said the new Institute will build upon the Center's
work in important ways. "Most of these campaigns, and the research
accompanying them, have concentrated on reducing one risky behavior
at a time. What's lost in this 'single issue' approach is whether,
for example, a successful anti-smoking campaign results in decreased
perception of the risks of drugs, or how the effectiveness of
a particular campaign changes as young teens grow older. What
works for one campaign may actually be harmful to another."
"The new Institute," she added, "will
enable us to have, for the first time, an integrated focus on
adolescent risk communications that will leverage our expertise
and resources for the best possible results."
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