Dr. Linda A. Teplin is the Director of the Health Disparities and Public Policy Program in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences. She is the Primary Investigator for the Northwestern Project, the first large-scale longitudinal study of mental health needs and outcomes of delinquent youth after detention. For nearly two decades, the Northwestern Project has tracked and re-interviewed nearly 2000 participants, first recruited when they entered the Cook County Temporary Juvenile Detention center when they were ages 10-18 years. The Northwestern Project assesses a broad range of outcomes, including psychiatric disorders, trajectories of substance abuse, patterns of service utilization, violence, HIV/AIDS, and death rates.