WASHINGTON, D.C. – The National Association of Social
Workers Foundation (NASWF) is pleased to announce Arizona State University
Regent’s Professor Flavio F. Marsiglia will receive a Knee/Wittman Lifetime
Achievement Award for his internationally recognized work in preventing
substance abuse by school students and ending health disparities among minority
groups.
“The NASW Foundation
is proud to present this award to Professor Marsiglia,” said NASWF Director
Robert Arnold. “He is a master at using solid social work research to work with
communities, organizations and other partners to address pressing social
issues, especially those that affect underserved populations such as people who
are Native American or Latino.”
The Knee/Wittman
Awards recognize individuals who are models of excellence and have made
significant contributions in the field of health and mental health. The
Knee/Wittman Award Program was established in 1990 to recognize those who
represent the values, ethics, and approaches exemplified by two dedicated
social work pioneers, Ruth Knee and Milton Wittman.
The Knee/Wittman
Lifetime Achievement Award recognizes a professional social worker who, over
the course of his/her career, has made an exemplary contribution to
health/mental health practice.
Professor Marsiglia,
PhD, MSW, fully embodies the spirit for which this award is intended. His early work as a school social worker
prompted him to collaborate with colleagues in the creation of keepin’ itREAL, a substance abuse program targeting middle school students.
The
initiative, initially funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) of
the National Institutes of Health (NIH), has been adapted across the United
States as well as Mexico, Guatemala, Uruguay and Spain. Professor Marsiglia
also spearheaded the design and testing of Families
Preparing the Next Generation (FPNG), a parenting program to prevent youth substance
use. FPNG
in turn was adapted with the urban American Indian community, becoming Parenting in Two Worlds (P2W). The National Institute on Minority Health and
Health Disparities (NIMHD) and NIDA have consistently funded his research
program for the last 22 years.
Professor Marsiglia
has conducted rigorous research that has had an impact on global health outcomes.
As director of the Southwest Interdisciplinary Research Center (SIRC) and now
the Global Center for Applied Health Research (GCHAR), he has led a team of
transdisciplinary researchers. Their efforts have resulted in numerous
adaptations of their interventions to different social and cultural contexts in
the US and globally.
Professor Marsiglia and
colleagues have led projects ranging from the treatment and prevention of co-occurring
disorders in Latinos and family acculturation studies, to addressing obesity
and diabetes in Latino populations, to improving interconception care for
Latina mothers and medication adherence for people living with schizophrenia.
And GCHAR is forging
research partnerships that are extending Marsiglia’s health equity research to
Africa, Asia, Europe and other countries in Latin America.
“Professor Marsiglia has
made invaluable contributions to health, mental health and substance abuse
research, education, policy and practice,” Arnold said. “And he has been truly
exceptional in using his research to make life better for others.”
Go here for more information on the Knee/Wittman Awards.