Kate Guastaferro

Assistant Professor of Social and Behavioral Sciences

Associate Director of the Center for the Advancement and Dissemination of Intervention Optimization

Professional overview

Kate Guastaferro, PhD is an intervention scientist by training, her work is devoted to the development, optimization, implementation and evaluation of effective, efficient, affordable and scalable interventions with high public health impact. She is an expert in the multiphase optimization (MOST) strategy and her expertise is in parent-focused, multicomponent behavioral interventions to prevent child maltreatment. Dr. Guastaferro co-led a statewide trial focused on the coordinated implementation of three evidence-base child sexual abuse prevention programs; included in this trial was the parent-focused child sexual abuse program that she developed, piloted and evaluated. Her current work is focused on the integration of intervention optimization into the prevention of child maltreatment.

Prior to joining NYU, Dr. Guastaferro was an assistant research professor in human development and family studies at the Pennsylvania State University, and an affiliate of its Prevention Research Center and Child Maltreatment Solutions Network. In 2020, she was awarded the Victoria S. Levin Award for Early Career Success in Young Children’s Mental Health Research from the Society for Research in Child Development. She has been published in Child Maltreatment, Translational Behavioral Medicine, and the American Journal of Public Health.

Dr. Guastaferro received her PhD and MPH from Georgia State University’s School of Public Health, and her BA in anthropology from Boston University. She also completed a year of postdoctoral training at the Pennsylvania State University.

Education

Postdoctoral Fellow, Prevention and Methodology Training Program (T32 DA017629), The Pennsylvania State University

PhD Public Health, Georgia State University

MPH Health Promotion, Georgia State University

BA Anthropology, Boston University

Honors and awards

Victoria S. Levin Award, Society for Research on Child Development (2020)

NIH Loan Repayment Program Award: Toward the Optimization of Behavioral Interventions to Prevent Child Maltreatment (201820192020)

Public Health Achievement Award, Georgia State University (2016)

Scarlet Key Honor Society, Boston University (2008)

Publications

Publications

A Parent-focused Child Sexual Abuse Prevention Program: Development, Acceptability, and Feasibility

Achieving the goals of translational science in public health intervention research: The multiphase optimization strategy (MOST)

Is Sexual Abuse a Unique Predictor of Sexual Risk Behaviors, Pregnancy, and Motherhood in Adolescence?

Modification to a Systematically Braided Parent-support Curriculum: Results from a Feasibility Pilot

The effect of substantiated and unsubstantiated investigations of child maltreatment and subsequent adolescent health

Braiding Two Evidence-Based Programs for Families At-Risk: Results of a Cluster Randomized Trial

Linking Patterns of Substance Use With Sexual Risk-Taking Among Female Adolescents With and Without Histories of Maltreatment

Implementing a braided home-based parent-support curriculum: Lessons learned

Systematic Braiding of 2 Evidence-Based Parent Training Programs: Qualitative Results from the Pilot Phase

Child maltreatment prevention

Maternal substance abuse, recovery and handling their children’s Illnesses

Mothers recovering from substance abuse and child maltreatment

Using a Technological Augmentation to Enhance Parent-Infant Interactions With Parents at Risk

An exploratory study of grandparents raising grandchildren and the criminal justice system: A research note

MoreWork needed to protect children but promising trend data on exposure to violence

Teaching young mothers to identify developmental milestones

SafeCare®: Historical perspective and dynamic development of an evidence-based scaled-up model for the prevention of child maltreatment