The Primary Advantages and Goals of the Center are:

• A relatively large set of established, similar, and committed longitudinal projects involving scholars from a range of behavioral science disciplines.


• Examining the full span of life-course development, from childhood to adolescence to adulthood and across generations.


• New understanding of human development in the many contexts in which it occurs, including families, the peer group, neighborhoods, schools, and communities.


• Utilizing the most advanced statistical analysis techniques.


• Having findings that will have implications for understanding and creating effective interventions.


• Dissemination of both the substantive and methodological knowledge derived from the collaborative.