Center for Child & Family Policy | Duke University

Ben Goodman

Research Scientist, Center for Child and Family Policy; Senior Fellow, Center for Child and Family Health; Director of Research and Evaluation, Family Connects International

Ben Goodman is a research scientist at the Center for Child and Family Policy and a senior fellow at the Center for Child & Family Health at Duke University. His research interests focus broadly on the implementation and evaluation of home visiting programs to improve parent and child well-being, as well as the influence of stress and support on the quality of parent-child relationships, parents’ own well-being, and child development.

Goodman currently serves as the director of research and innovation for the Family Connects International, a program connecting families to community resources via nurse home visits. Results have shown this program to have a positive impact on child and family health and well-being by improving parenting behaviors, decreasing maternal anxiety, increasing home safety and reducing the need for child emergency medical care. Goodman oversees program evaluation for all communities implementing Family Connects and leads the program’s impact evaluation work, including two randomized, controlled trials in Durham, North Carolina, and a quasi-experimental study in four low-income, rural counties in eastern North Carolina. Additionally, Goodman is contributing to a new collaboration between three evidence-based programs — Family Connects, Nurse-Family Partnership, and HealthySteps — to develop a continuum of supports to promote well-being and kindergarten readiness for all children in Guilford County, N.C.

Goodman received his doctorate in human development and family studies from The Pennsylvania State University and was a postdoctoral scholar at Penn State’s Prevention Research Center prior to joining the Center for Child and Family Policy.

Affiliated Projects:

• Community Prevention of Child Maltreatment
• Prospective Study of Infant Development
• Family Connects International
• Durham Connects
• Family Connects – Nurse-Family Partnership Prenatal Collaboration
• Family Connects - HealthySteps 0-3 Collaboration

Research Interests:
Early Childhood, Parenting, Program Evaluation

Education:

• Ph.D. The Pennsylvania State University - 2009

Recent Publications   (More Publications)

1. Dodge, K.A. & Goodman, W.B (2019). Universal Reach at Birth: Family Connects. Future of Children, 29(1), 41-60. [universal-approachespromoting-healthy-development]  [abs]


2. Goodman, W.B., O’Donnell, K., Murphy, R.A., & Dodge, K.A. (2019). Moving beyond program to population impact: Toward a universal early childhood system of care. Journal of Family Theory & Review, 11, 112-126. [doi]  [abs]


3. Berlin, L.J., Martoccio, T.L., Carmody, K.A., Goodman, W.B., O’Donnell, K., Williams, J.,…Dodge, K.A. (2019). Can typical US home visits affect infant attachment? Preliminary findings from a randomized controlled trial of Health Families Durham. Attachment and Human Development, 6, 559-579. [doi]  [abs]


4. Dodge, K.A., Goodman, W.B., Murphy, R.A., O’Donnell, K., Sato, J., & Guptill, S. (2014). Implementation and randomized controlled trial evaluation of universal postnatal nurse home visiting. American Journal of Public Health, S136-S143.  [abs]


5. Dodge, K.A., Goodman, W.B, Murphy, R.A., O'Donnell, K.J. & Sato, J. (2013). Toward population impact from home visiting.. ZERO TO THREE, 33(3), 17-23.  [abs]

Curriculum Vitae