Editorial: Prevention's Power: Depression Incidence Halved 15 Years After Participation in the Family Bereavement Program

Abstract

Prevention can be powerful. In the current issue of this Journal, Sandler et al. report on the long-term effects of the Family Bereavement Program (FBP), an intervention designed to promote resilience among parentally bereaved youth, as assessed 15 years after receipt of the initial intervention.¹ Youth who received the FBP had half the rate of depression compared to those who received the comparison condition (13.46% vs 28.05%). This effect is as large or larger than many of our evidence-based treatments for depression, and considerably more enduring.² An additional, elegant feature of this paper is that it identifies some mechanisms by which the FBP appears to exert its preventive effects.