This special issue contains a collection of papers that address different aspects of incorporating genetic information into prevention studies. Several are illustrative of the growing body of literature (Albert et al., 2015; Bakermans-Kranenburg, Van, Pijlman, Mesman, & Juffer, 2008; Brody, Beach, Philibert, Chen, & Murry, 2009; Brody et al., 2014) that demonstrates that part of what contributes to differential outcomes across children in prevention studies is differences in their genetic predispositions(Cleveland et al., 2017; Glenn et al., 2017; Russell et al., 2017; Zheng, Albert, McMahon, Dodge, & Dick, 2016). Prevention is not equally effective for everyone, and there is suggestion that genetic information could be one way to help determine which children will respond best to which intervention. It is the prevention extension of “personalized medicine” (Burke & Psaty, 2007; Guttmacher & Collins, 2003; Guttmacher, Porteous, & McInerney, 2007).
