Robert Bradley

The purpose of this project is to construct three integrative reviews organized around the HOME Inventory. I am one of the developers of the HOME Inventory and have been involved with constructing, disseminating, communicating, and training on the measure since 1973. I and have been an investigator or consultant for several studies that have employed HOME, including the NICHD Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development, the Early Head Start Research and Evaluation study, the Maternal Lifestyle Study, Family Life Project, Legacy of Children, and Infant Health and Development Program. I have done HOME training for all these projects and have helped analyze HOME data for most. As well I have helped evaluate or adapt HOME for use in several other countries (e.g., Romania, the Netherlands, Finland, Portugal, Spain, Chile, Argentina, Indonesia, Taiwan, Kenya). I worked with personnel on the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth to adapt the HOME for that project (HOME-SF) and have published extensively from most of these data sets. I have also served on advisory panels or as a consultant to the Native American and Alaska Native Head Start Research Center, the National Household Education Survey, Starting Early Starting Smart, Head Start Impact Study, UNICEF Indicators project, and the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study in matters connected with measurement of home environments. As well I have functioned as associate editor for Child Development and for Early Childhood Research Quarterly and currently serve on the editorial boards for Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine, Early Education and Development, Parenting: Science & Practice, and Journal of Marriage and the Family. Many of my publications deal with parenting, family context and their relation to child well-being and with assessment of family environments. I have had a number of other experiences (some still ongoing) that should help me in conducting the proposed series of reviews. First, I have done HOME training every year for the past 30 years. The training has been done in connection with research projects like those mentioned above, intervention projects, and child welfare agencies. This gives me a broad perspective on the use of home environment measures and issues connected to their use. Second, I have also prepared a number of reviews that address HOME in particular and home environments more generally. One of those involved the use of meta-analysis. Third, as mentioned above, I have been involved in a diverse array of both small and large scale studies. These studies have included a very broad array of child, family, and contextual measures. Thus, I am familiar with most of the kinds of measures and data collection processes described in the reports to be reviewed. I think this should help me in interpreting the meaning of results and placing them in a broader context. Finally, my long standing involvement with the home (as one of its developers) has placed me in constant contact with users throughout the world. It is a very rare week that I do not have some form of such communication. This experience has deepened my understanding about HOME as an instrument, about how environmental measures more generally, and many issues pertaining to their use in different venues and to different purposes