John Jay College Of Criminal Justice | The City University of New York

Dr. Cathy Spatz-Widom
Distinguished Professor

In this edition, the Office of Sponsored Programs' spotlight is on Dr. Cathy Spatz Widom for her two recent grant awards. Dr. Widom is a Distinguished Professor in the Psychology Department at John Jay College and a member of the Graduate Center faculty, City University of New York. She is a renowned researcher in the area of long term consequences of early childhood abuse (physical and sexual) and neglect and is currently completing research on the intergenerational transmission of violence.

Dr. Widom's application to the National Institute of Justice solicitation on "Research on Violence and Victimization Across the Life-Span" was funded in the amount of $311,967. The purpose of the project is to update knowledge of the "cycle of violence" by conducting a 30-year follow-up of criminal histories for the large sample of abused and neglected children and matched controls that were in her pervious NIJ-funded study. The main goal of this grant is to further understand the life course of criminal behavior in these individuals who have now reached middle adulthood. The study's findings will have clear implications for developing programs to break the cycle of violence and will be used by policy makers and economists to calculate some of the long-term costs associated with the consequences of childhood maltreatment.

Dr. Widom's other recent award from the National Institutes of Health in the amount of $ 1,528,124 for a project entitled "Genetic Behavioral and Psychosocial Factors Linking Child Maltreatment to Health Outcomes" will test three competing models of how child abuse and neglect lead to mental and physical health consequences in adulthood. In collaboration with a geneticist at Rutgers University, Dr. Linda Brzustowicz, Dr. Widom will be examining the role of a variety of genes and how they interact with child maltreatment to predict long-term physical and mental health outcomes. The project will lead to increased understanding of the multiple pathways through which stressful childhood experiences, such as childhood physical and sexual abuse and neglect, lead to the development of different mental and physical health consequences.