History timeline
A history of inquiry and impact
Four decades of discovery
A center built for connection
CFR was established as an integral part of UGA’s Owens Institute for Behavioral Research, bringing scholars from diverse disciplines together to find innovative ways to study family life.
Early focus: family processes, family stress, and prevention and intervention.
Longitudinal research
Following families over time
Gene Brody and Velma McBride Murry began two large, multi-informant, multi-method studies to identify and track the forces supporting healthy development among rural African American families.
The finding: powerful protective factors often begin in caregivers’ everyday practices.
New leadership
A sharper focus on context
Gene Brody became director and Velma McBride Murry served as co-director. Together, they focused CFR’s work on the reciprocal influence of children, caregivers, and community on health and psychological adjustment.
The lens: African American families living in the rural South.
Genes meet environment
A new biological dimension
Steven Beach began a CFR study group focused on gene–environment interactions. In collaboration with geneticist Robert Philibert, CFR added genetic samples to its longitudinal and intervention research.
The advance: more sensitive ways to examine genetic risk, lived experience, and intervention outcomes together.
From findings to families
Prevention science takes shape
Research on caregiving and resilience informed CFR’s first preventive intervention: the Strong African American Families program. SAAF was tested in a randomized trial with more than 600 families.
Lasting outcomes: delayed alcohol use and unsafe sexual activity, with benefits persisting years after the intervention.
Stress under the skin
Measuring the body’s burden
CFR launched research into allostatic load—the body’s cumulative physical response to chronic stress—among rural African American young adults.
The goal: contribute to a clearer understanding of racial health disparities.
An enduring platform
Decades of data, one living mission
Reports from caregivers, young people, friends, supportive adults, and teachers—combined with community-level data—continue to make CFR uniquely equipped to study development in context.
The throughline: rigorous science in service of families living through challenging circumstances.
“If you want to understand something, try to change it.”
Urie Bronfenbrenner, as recalled by Gene Brody
Science that stays close to real life
“If you want to understand something, try to change it.”
Urie Bronfenbrenner, as recalled by Gene Brody