Daniel Francis Perkins

• Doctor of Philosophy
• Principal Investigator at Pennsylvania State University

Military sexual trauma (MST) is prevalent and causes numerous deleterious effects on survivors. This study investigated the association between mental health counseling (MHC) and resilience among a large cohort of U.S. veterans who served in support of military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan following the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks....

Introduction Research-practice-policy partnerships are shifting the academic research paradigm toward collaboration and research-informed action at community and policy levels. In this case study, researchers partnered with philanthropic foundations to actualize data findings from a rigorous, longitudinal study. Context In 2016, a survey of post-9...

Underemployment is an involuntary condition where individuals consider their employment inferior relative to a standard. This study analyzes underemployment among veterans using data from a large longitudinal study and federal occupational data to explore the relationship between subjective perceptions and objective indicators. Veterans reported th...

Objective: Post-9/11 veterans experienced more deployments, combat exposure, and disability than earlier military cohorts. Those in the military are also more likely to have experienced adverse childhood experiences. Despite these traumatic exposures, a substantial number of veterans report experiencing personal growth, development, and maturity fr...

Introduction The impact of adverse childhood experiences (ACEs), warfare exposure, and mental health symptoms upon changes in body mass index (BMI) were examined in a large U.S. post-9/11 veteran sample to assess gender-specific changes in BMI within the first 2½ years after military service. Materials and Methods Data were collected with institut...

Post-9/11 veterans transitioning from the service face significant risks of underemployment, with many leaving their jobs within their first year of employment. Underemployment is associated with well-being challenges for veterans, and job turnover is costly to employers. Based on two waves of data from a large longitudinal dataset of transitioning...

This case study on the Children, Youth, and Families At-Risk (CYFAR) Professional Development and Technical Assistance (PDTA) Center highlights a government-funded entity’s efforts to provide technical assistance to federal grantees of the CYFAR Sustainable Community Projects (SCP) grant program. The PDTA Center aligns with and supports components...

Developmental theory indicates that success during a major life change requires attention to multiple life domains (e.g., physical health, mental health, employment, financial, and social). This study presents a revised conceptual framework and offers a new empirical model to assess the well-being of post-9/11 veterans as they transition to civilia...

The COVID‐19 pandemic has led to economic turndowns, social restrictions, and family life alterations. The stress induced by the public health crisis and its consequences are beginning to be explored. This study examined stress experiences since the pandemic'sonset in work, financial, social, and health domainsamong a large sample of post‐9/11, Uni...

Financial programs may help veterans who have problematic financial status (PFS). As they support veterans, they improve their ability to meet their immediate financial needs (IFN) and financial satisfaction (FS) after their military-to-civilian transition. This study examined the use of financial programs and distilled them into their content comp...

This study examined how veteran social engagement predicted post-secondary school attainment. Nearly 10,000 post-9/11 veterans, who separated from military service in 2016, were surveyed on the programs/services they used over 4 years following separation. More than half of veterans had obtained a degree within 4 years of separation. A higher propo...

Access to quality sexual assault (SA) care in rural communities is limited by challenges surrounding building and sustaining a skilled SA nurse examiner workforce. Telehealth can facilitate access to expert care while cultivating a local sexual assault response. The Sexual Assault Forensic Examination Telehealth (SAFE-T) Center aims to decrease dis...

Purpose: Evidence-based program registries (EBPRs) are web-based databases of evaluation studies that summarize the available evidence for the effectiveness of behavioral healthcare programs, including programs addressing substance misuse, mental health, child welfare, or offender rehabilitation. The study determined the extent to which visitors t...

Two studies examined the impact of the implementation of the Field-tested Assessment, Intervention-planning, and Response (FAIR) system, a system-level intervention for determining whether allegations of family maltreatment meet threshold for abuse or neglect, on alleged recidivism. Data were collected at the 10 U.S. Army installations with the lar...

Guided by social learning theory, this longitudinal study examined whether parent-child recurring conflict mediated the association between parental anger management, an understudied antecedent to parent-child recurring conflict, and adolescent deviant and problem-solving behaviors in 415 rural families. Parental use of anger management in 6 th gra...

Background: Evidence-based program resources (EBPR) websites for behavioral health are a potentially useful tool to assist decision-makers and practitioners in deciding which behavioral health interventions to implement. EBPR websites apply rigorous research standards to assess the effectiveness of behavioral healthcare programs, models, and clinic...

Military sexual trauma (MST) is a pervasive problem; this study examined the relationship of the precursory traumas of adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) and warfare exposure with MST. Post-9/11 veterans were surveyed at 3 months and at 24 to 30 months post-military separation. Female veterans who experienced at least 1 ACE but no warfare exposur...

Objective: Despite theorizing that posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptomatology may be exacerbated during the military-to-civilian transition, little research has delved into the trajectory of trauma-related symptomatology or the impact of diverse factors on timing of PTSD onset. To understand risk and protective factors for PTSD during the...

This study assessed the Moral Injury Symptoms Scale – Military Version – Short Form’s (MISS-M-SF) factor structure and construct validity. Participants included 3650 combat-deployed U.S. veterans who answered all 10 MISS-M-SF items from the sixth wave of The Veterans Metric Initiative (TVMI). EFA results suggested a two-factor solution, based on it...

Background: Underemployment is a challenge for the civilian workforce and a particular risk for veterans as they transition from military service to civilian employment. Workers' economic and demographic characteristics factor into underemployment risk. Veterans may be at greater risk due to specific economic and demographic factors, transitional...

Objective: Trauma-exposed veterans may be more likely to experience posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), chronic pain, and sleep disturbance together rather than in isolation. Although these conditions are independently associated with distress and impairment, how they relate to social functioning and suicidal ideation (SI) when experienced comorb...

Objective Risk and protective factors associated with parental functioning (i.e., meeting child's emotional needs) and satisfaction (i.e., closeness) were examined among post‐9/11 veteran mothers during their civilian transition. Background Post–military‐separation stressors (e.g., relocation, benefit changes) can strain well‐being and familial re...

Introduction Veterans transitioning from military service to civilian life manage numerous changes simultaneously, in health, employment, social relationships, and finances. Financial problems may impact financial well-being as well as adjustment to civilian life in general; yet, research on Veterans’ financial challenges remains limited. This stud...

This study assessed the effectiveness of employment programs components, which resulted in the identification of content and process components that increase employability. Employment program use was studied among 1172 United States of America military veterans to determine which content (i.e., interviewing skills) and process (i.e., working with a...

Objectives To examine whether the U.S. military veteran population experiences improvements or declines in their health and broader well-being during the first three years after leaving military service and to document differences based on gender, military rank, and warzone deployment history. Methods A population-based sample of 3733 newly separa...

Parents influence their child’s positive development, and this is especially true during early childhood. In military families, the largest percentage of children are between 0 and 5 years old, and there is growing interest in developing and disseminating parent-focused interventions that target this age range for military parents. The present stud...

The Army New Parent Support Program (Army NPSP) provides home visitation services that promote positive parenting strategies and aims to prevent family violence for expectant military parents and military families with children from birth to age 3. Since the onset of the novel coronavirus (COVID-19), Army NPSP services have rapidly adapted to a tel...

Background: Multilevel data can be missing at the individual level or at a nested level, such as family, classroom, or program site. Increased knowledge of higher-level missing data is necessary to develop evaluation design and statistical methods to address it. Methods: Participants included 9,514 individuals participating in 47 youth and famil...

Introduction: Substantial disparities in the quality of post-sexual-assault (SA) care exist in the United States, particularly in rural areas. This study evaluates the implementation of the Sexual Assault Forensic Examination Telehealth Center, a program to improve SA care by increasing access to experienced sexual assault nurse examiners via tele...

The Army Family Advocacy Program (Army FAP) strives to prevent family violence and intervene to reduce the deleterious effects of exposure to family violence. This paper examines the individual, family, community, and treatment factors associated with family violence revictimization. Case files of 134 families with substantiated child maltreatment...

In this study we assess improvement in civic engagement skills following youth leadership program participation, as well as the program quality components related to youth civic engagement skill development. Participants included 320 youth, ages 12 to 18, from 5 different youth programs nationwide that included a community advocacy component who co...

Introduction The U.S. Air Force (USAF) conducted a program of research to develop and disseminate reliable and valid criteria for partner and child maltreatment (comprising abuse [physical, emotional/psychological, and sexual] and neglect). These criteria are now used in all branches of the U.S. military. The U.S. Army was the first service outside...

Employing a strengths-based perspective, this study examined protective factors related to fathers’ positive parenting behaviors and parenting satisfaction. The sample included 3,810 active duty veteran fathers who separated from the active component and had at least one child 18 years and younger. Logistic regression analyses indicated that financ...

Prior research has examined the independent effects of demographic and military characteristics, trauma history, and coping resources on military veterans' health. However, there is limited knowledge of how these factors intersect with one another and with veterans' health to impact their broader well-being as they readjust to civilian life. Data f...

Military veterans have greater exposure to adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) than civilians and many also encounter warfare exposures, which can increase the likelihood of mental health problems. The purpose of this study was to test an interaction between childhood traumas and warfare exposures on the mental health of a sample of nearly 10,000...

Background. This study examined the impact of the implementation of the Field-tested Assessment, Intervention-planning, and Response (FAIR) system for maltreatment determination on two measures recidivism of family maltreatment. Methods. The 10 U.S. Army installations with the largest caseloads participated. Data were collected when Family Advocacy...

Given the diversity of military veterans and growing evidence of ethnoracial disparities in posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) within this population, elucidating the role of discrimination-related stress in contributing to these disparities is crucial. We examined the relative impact of discriminatory stress (i.e., due to race/ethnicity, religio...

Prevention Coordinators are the linking agents providing technical assistance between universities and communities in the PROSPER model to support the implementation and sustainability of youth and family programs that have reduced substance abuse in prior research. This study examines the outcomes and trajectory of the frequency of contact of tech...

Background Although research has shown that exposure to potentially traumatic and morally injurious events is associated with psychological symptoms among veterans, knowledge regarding functioning impacts remains limited. Methods A population-based sample of post-9/11 veterans completed measures of intimate relationship, health, and work functioni...

Latent class analysis (LCA) was used to explore heterogeneity in experience of program quality among 2120 at-risk youth participating in youth development programs across the United States and to assess the associations of LCA membership to several youth outcomes. Among all participating youth, three classes emerged with varying levels of youth exp...

Promoting military child well-being is imperative for enhancing resiliency and public health within military families and the United States. Providing military families with parent-focused interventions (PFIs) is one, potentially beneficial technique for fostering favorable health outcomes in military children. This study presents implementation fe...

Moral injury (MI) may occur in the context of committing transgressions (i.e., self‐directed MI reactions), witnessing transgressions, or being the victims of others’ transgressions (i.e., other‐directed MI reactions) that violate an individual's moral principles. Veterans with MI may experience impaired social well‐being (SWB). Studies on MI and v...

Objective: Adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) are early life experiences of abuse and neglect, and observed violence, among others. For military veterans, both ACEs and combat exposure are associated with mental health problems. Method: This study examines the relationship between ACEs and combat exposure on the current mental health in a larg...

Our goal was to identify gender differences in the prevalence and outcomes of exposure to potentially morally injurious events (PMIEs) in a sample of U.S. military veterans. In a national sample of post-9/11 veterans (n = 7,200) weighted to reflect the larger population of newly separated U.S. veterans, we conducted gender-stratified analyses of th...

In 2013, the National Institute of Food and Agriculture supported the creation of a professional development and technical assistance center to promote strong implementation and evaluation of University-led, community-based projects serving low-resource populations. Within this center, a coaching cadre was established to provide proactive and respo...

The necessity to implement evidence-based programs to support the healthy development of youth and families is becoming part of national policy. Organizations that are not “ready” to do so will likely lose resources, disallowing them to serve as they have set out to do. Consequently, the current survey study draws from a national sample of Cooperat...

Background: Numerous programs exist to support veterans in their transitions to civilian life. Programs are offered by a host of governmental and non-governmental stakeholders. Veterans report encountering many barriers to program participation. This study identified barrier reduction strategies offered by programs that new post-9/11 veterans repo...

Background Rural and underserved communities often struggle to provide access to specialized health care, including sexual assault care. Telehealth is an effective solution for providing access to an array of specialized health care services. Prior sexual assault telehealth programs have provided evidence that telehealth is a feasible and acceptabl...

Objective: The Veterans Metrics Initiative is a longitudinal survey study examining the military-to-civilian transition of a cohort of new post-9/11 veterans. This study identified the programs and services used by new post-9/11 veterans who screened positive for mental health problems (N=3,295) and factors that predicted use. Methods: The popul...

This research brief summarizes and highlights presentations on moral injury related to theory, measurement, and applications. The overall was to identify current gaps and propose next steps to advance the science of moral injury.

Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) has been found to lead to several adverse perinatal outcomes in the general population. Preliminary research has found that women veterans with PTSD have an increased prevalence of preterm birth, gestational diabetes, and preeclampsia. Less research has examined the role of moral injury (MI) in perinatal outcome...

Background - Numerous programs exist to support veterans in their transitions to civilian life. Programs are offered by a host of governmental and non-governmental stakeholders. Veterans report encountering many barriers to program participation. This study identified barrier reduction strategies offered by programs that new post-9/11 veterans repo...

Introduction: This study examined the health and well-being of U.S. veterans during the first year after military service and tested several hypotheses regarding differences in veterans' well-being over time, across life domains, and based on sex, military rank, and deployment history. Methods: A national sample of 9,566 veterans was recruited f...

Objectives: The Veterans Health Administration (VHA) is adapting to a new model of care in the wake of the Veterans Choice Act of 2014. A longitudinal study, The Veterans Metrics Initiative, captured multiple domains of psychosocial health and healthcare use as veterans moved through the first 15 months of transition from military to civilian life...

Background - Numerous programs exist to support veterans in their transitions to civilian life. Programs are offered by a host of governmental and non-governmental stakeholders. Veterans report encountering many barriers to program participation. This was the first study to identify barrier reduction strategies offered by programs that post-9/11 ve...

Purpose Digitally delivered, parent-focused interventions (DD-PFIs) are viewed as an important method for supporting child well-being. Few DD-PFIs include health-promotion and general-parenting content, and only some are intended for a universal audience. The purpose of this paper is to focus on a preliminary evaluation of Grow Online, which was de...

Post-9/11 veterans indicate that obtaining employment is both a priority and a challenge. Numerous federal, state, community, foundation-funded and corporate programs have been created to assist veterans; however, there is little empirical evidence to know what programming is effective and for whom. This study examined predictors of employment prog...

Assessment that accurately categorizes families’ risk for family violence (i.e., intimate partner violence and child maltreatment) and identifies areas of family need is essential for prevention program planning, practice, and resource allocation. The Family Needs Screener (FNS) assesses risk for intimate partner violence and child maltreatment. It...

Background: Despite the high prevalence of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) among military veterans, there is a lack of knowledge about racial/ethnic differences. The current study describes patterns and correlates of PTSD screening across race/ethnicity and gender in a sample of 9420 veterans recently separated from the military. Veterans who...

Background - Numerous programs exist to support veterans in their transitions to civilian life. Programs are offered by a host of governmental and non-governmental stakeholders. Veterans report encountering many barriers to program participation. This was the first study to identify barrier reduction strategies offered by programs that post-9/11 ve...

Background - Numerous programs exist to support veterans in their transitions to civilian life. Programs are offered by a host of governmental and non-governmental stakeholders. Veterans report encountering many barriers to program participation. This was the first study to identify barrier reduction strategies offered by programs that post-9/11 ve...

Background - Numerous programs exist to support veterans in their transitions to civilian life. Programs are offered by a host of governmental and non-governmental stakeholders. Veterans report encountering many barriers to program participation. This was the first study to identify barrier reduction strategies offered by programs that post-9/11 ve...

The negative effects of military work-related parental absences on military families and military children in particular have been detailed in the literature. Family adjustment to increased stress during deployment is influenced by the family’s perceptions of the stressors. In the study reported in this article, military spouses (N = 79) were inter...

Introduction: Interest in moral injury has burgeoned over the last decade as an increasing number of professionals recognize that current conceptualizations of trauma are not sufficient to explain some of the challenges that military service members face. The Moral Injury Events Scale (MIES) was the first instrument developed to measure exposure t...

Researchers, clinicians, and other professionals are increasingly in need of cost-effective, evidence-based programs and practices. However, these individuals may lack the time and, for some, the required expertise to search for and identify such interventions. To address this concern, several online registers that list or categorize programs accor...

Background We developed and validated the Well‐Being Inventory (WBI) to address the need for a tool that can provide a comprehensive assessment of key aspects of military veterans' lives. This multidimensional instrument assesses status, functioning, and satisfaction with regard to vocation, finances, health, and social relationships. Methods Two...

Transitioning from military to civilian life is challenging for a substantial number of veterans. Successful transitions require veterans to function well in various well-being domains including employment, education, financial, health, and social relationships. There are many programs and services designed to assist veterans transition to civilian...

Purpose – Employing brief, low-intensity, face-to-face parenting programs can result in improvements in parenting and child behavior; however, their usefulness is often limited by low participation rates. Online technologies are increasingly presented as a panacea for promoting program reach in a cost-effective way. The extant literature, however,...

A substantial minority of veterans struggle as they reintegrate into civilian life, reporting problems with vocational attainment, legal/financial/housing challenges, physical and mental health conditions, and social/interpersonal issues. While there are thousands of programs and services offered to veterans, little is known about which ones they u...

As youth programs have continued to evolve over the last 100 years, the field of program evaluation has advanced significantly in an effort to differentiate which youth program components are necessary to promote positive youth development (e.g., Eccles & Gootman, 2002; Lerner et al., 2013). The Children, Youth, and Families at Risk (CYFAR) initiat...

Attachment often contributes to decision-making in child care proceedings. 1 Attachment refers to the protection and comfort that caregivers provide and these are precisely the attributes threatened in child care proceedings. Assessment of attachment can reveal family mem-bers' protective strategies, the historical experiences that have shaped the...

Introduction With the changing roles of female military personnel, it is important to understand how wartime experiences and their impacts are similar and different for military men and women. This study examined gender differences in exposure to wartime events and post-deployment post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and depressive symptoms, as we...

Objective Using an ecological resilience model, we sought to identify protective factors that buffer against the effects of stressful deployment‐related experiences on symptoms of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) among active duty U.S. Air Force personnel who were married or in a committed relationship. Background Stressful deployment experien...

Evaluators are challenged to keep pace with the vast array of Veteran support programs operating in the United States, resulting in a situation in which many programs lack any evidence of impact. Due to this lack of evidence, there is no efficient way to suggest which programs are most effective in helping Veterans in need of support. One potential...

To optimize public health in the next decade, prevention of childhood obesity will remain a central focus. To impact behavioral change, data must be linked to continuous quality improvements within existing nutrition and physical activity programming. The Children, Youth, and Families At-Risk Professional Development and Technical Assistance Center...

The Institute of Medicine has stressed the need for evaluations of evidence-based treatments (EBTs) for posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) among active duty service members (AD) using a variety of evaluation approaches (Institute of Medicine, 2012). The current study examined the clinical files of 134 service members who completed treatment for P...

Objective: Over the past few decades, women's roles in the United States military have expanded significantly. Currently women encounter more wartime experiences during deployment than in the past. Previous research with male service members has linked exposure to wartime events to subsequent development of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) sy...

Purpose Parent-focused interventions (PFIs) are a promising method for supporting parents and promoting children’s well-being. Few PFIs in the USA, however, include physical health promotion content and are universal programs. The purpose of this paper is to describe a universal health-promoting PFI for parents of elementary school-aged children an...

Purpose Efforts to promote the health and well-being of military veterans have been criticised for being inadequately informed of veterans’ most pressing needs as they separate from military service, as well as the programmes that are most likely to meet these needs. The current article summarises limitations of the current literature and introduce...

Objective: Large numbers of United States service members and veterans are enrolling in colleges and universities. Many are experiencing posttraumatic stress symptoms secondary to their military service, and these symptoms are associated with academic dysfunction. However, little is known about the mechanism(s) through which posttraumatic stress i...

Common components analysis (CCA) may be an efficient method to identify specific program components related to the prevention of child maltreatment. We used adapted CCA to examine home visiting programs designed to reduce or prevent child maltreatment and identify which program components are most likely to contribute to the prevention of child mal...

Program development is a complex, iterative process involving multiple steps and decision points. This article presents the common components approach as comparatively efficient, heuristic tool for deciding what content to include in a new program on the basis of current manualized evidence-based programs, alongside theory, basic research findings,...

There has been a shift in the way youth development has been conceptualized – from thinking of youth as problems to be fixed to thinking of them as resources to be nourished and engaged in community life. This shift has spawned a great deal of thought and attention about how to prevent problem behaviors, while at the same time thinking about how to...

Violence in military families remains a vexing problem. Since the advent of the Global War on Terror, there is inconsistent evidence that the prevalence of family violence is increasing, particularly during and after military deployments. However, child neglect appears to increase significantly during military deployments. The military has develope...

Background: The Children, Youth, and Families At-Risk (CYFAR) initiative provides funding and technical support for local community-based programs designed to promote positive outcomes among vulnerable populations. In 2013, CYFAR implemented significant changes in the way it provides technical assistance (TA) to grantees. These changes included in...

Common Components Analysis (CCA) summarizes the results of program evaluations that utilize randomized control trials and have demonstrated effectiveness in improving their intended outcome(s) into their key elements. This area of research has integrated and modified the existing CCA approach to provide a means of evaluating components of programs...

Evaluating the implementation of parenting interventions is critical to program diffusion and quality across populations and settings, and to enhancing treatment outcomes. This article presents implementation findings from a pilot study of Grow!, a universal parenting program targeting parents of five to eight years olds that aims to improve child...

The PROSPER model uses a three-tiered community partnership, university researcher, and Cooperative Extension-based technical assistance system to support the delivery of evidence-based interventions in communities. This study examines the trajectory and predictors of the collaborative relationship between technical assistance providers and communi...

The New Parent Support Program (NPSP) is an intensive secondary prevention, parent-education program that serves high-needs families with very young children in the Active Components of the Army, Air Force, Navy, and Marine Corps. The Clearinghouse for Military Family Readiness at Penn State (Clearinghouse) was tasked to work with all of the Servic...

Evidence-based programs can promote well-being; however, barriers to implementation exist. Barriers include lack of time to find evidence and lack of expertise among some practitioners in reading and evaluating evidence. A partnership among the Department of Defense Office of Military Community and Family Policy, the National Institute for Food and...

School personnel at the teacher, student services and administrative levels grapple with how best to serve children at risk and are in need of guidance on issues of professional development, mandated reporting, prevention programming, their role in intervention and referral, and policy decisions. In order to address these concerns, this chapter exa...

This introductory chapter presents an overview of the concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. Family violence and child maltreatment is a serious and international public health concern. The book aims to put the need to evidence child protection practice at the forefront. It sets out to provide a comprehensive overview of the cu...

The impact of service member suicides on families is not well understood. Civilian studies have demonstrated that family survivors of suicide deaths experience complicated grief, feel guilt and shame, and often do not receive sufficient social support. In this exploratory study, spouse survivors of Marines who died by suicide (N = 17), accident (N...

This study’s goal was to identify how to increase National Guard and Reserve military family participation in research. Compared to Active Duty, families of National Guard and Reserve members are more geographically dispersed and less connected to a military base which can prove problematic for research recruitment and participation. We conducted a...

Through their participation in youth programs, young people have access to opportunities to learn and build important skills. A total of 214 youth between the ages of 10-19 (mean 15.5 years) completed an online survey about characteristics of youth programs they participated in, didn’t participate in, and had participated in but quit. We found that...

Fathering in the military context has been studied for decades. The general approach to this research has mirrored the way in which civilian fathering was studied, with an original emphasis on the deficiencies among fathers as parents, eventually giving way to examining the benefits of father involvement. Largely in the past decade, research has be...