World-Renowned Researcher to Speak at Feb. 4 UC School of Criminal Justice Speaker Series

One of the most highly cited researchers in the world with cross-disciplinary expertise in psychology, behavioral genetics, and mental health epidemiology, among others, will be visiting the University of Cincinnati and discussing her work in a presentation titled “Early Childhood Origins of an Ultra-High-Cost Segment of the Population.”

Terrie E. Moffitt, professor and researcher at Duke University, will speak at 220 TUC Main Street Cinema at 3 p.m., Feb. 4, exploring the fascinating intersection of nature and nurture in child and human development, especially as it relates to factors that contribute to a particularly risky segment of the population.

Moffitt is associate director of the ongoing Dunedin Multidisciplinary Health and Development Study, which is a four-decade longitudinal study of about 1,000 people born from April 1, 1972, to March 31, 1973, in New Zealand. She and others involved in the study examined risk factors in childhood and measures of social, health, and economic outcomes in adulthood.

Results show that an ultra-high economic cost segment of the group emerged and had been impacted by early childhood risk factors such as low family socio-economic status, child maltreatment, low self-control, and low IQ.

“This study illustrates that most of a nation’s social services, crime control, and health-care costs are expended on a relatively small population segment,” said Moffitt in the research abstract for her presentation.

Moffitt will explore the risk factors that characterize this small population and policy implications for targeted prevention strategies.

Moffitt is a licensed clinical psychologist and received the American Psychological Association's Early Career Contribution Award in 1993 as well as the Distinguished Career Award in Clinical Child Psychology in 2006. Moffitt is the recipient of numerous awards and accolades for her research, including the Stockholm Prize in Criminology, which is the criminological equivalent of the Nobel Prize. She is also a fellow of several academies and organizations and a trustee of the Nuffield Foundation.

Moffitt works at Duke University, at the Institute of Psychiatry, King's College London in the UK, and at the Dunedin School of Medicine in New Zealand. Her particular research interests are in antisocial and criminal behavior but she also studies depression, psychosis, and addiction.

The lecture is free and open to the public. Seating is available on first come, first served basis.