Center for Developmental Disabilities Evaluation and Research

located at the Eunice Kennedy Shriver Center for Research in Mental Retardation is a designated University of Massachusetts Medical School Center of Excellence

The Center for Developmental Disabilities Evaluation and Research (CDDER) is part of the Center for Health Policy and Research (CHPR), under the direction of Dr. Ron Steingard. CHPR's mission is to promote and conduct applied research, evaluation, quality improvement, education and training aimed at informing policy decisions and advancing practice to improve the health and well-being of people served by public agencies. CDDER works in partnership with public agencies that serve people with developmental disabilities to provide customized solutions to enhance health, safety and quality of life for the individuals they serve. Based at the Eunice Kennedy Shriver Center, a Center of Excellence within the University of Massachusetts Medical School, CDDER is able to leverage world-class clinical research and technology resources to enhance the capacity of public service agencies in the areas of:

  • Program and system evaluation
  • Applied research
  • Program development
  • Risk management and quality improvement
  • Staff training and development

CDDER was established in 2000 as a partnership between Commonwealth Medicine at the University of Massachusetts Medical School and the Massachusetts Department of Mental Retardation (DMR) to provide research and development support to the DMR in the area of health and safety. To date, CDDER's major projects have included:

  • Identification and customization of a health screening tool for use by direct support providers.
  • Development of Preventive Health Guidelines for Individuals with Mental Retardation.
  • Root Cause Analysis training and support.
  • Incident Management protocol development.
  • Mapping the Community based system of mental health and physical health supports.
  • Annual mortality reports.
  • Implementation and evaluation of a pilot study of DMR's new Health Promotion and Coordination initiative. Support in development of training modules for community providers.
  • Quantitative analysis of clinical service capacity within the residential provider system.
  • Analysis of Medicaid pharmacy utilization claims data

CDDER has built the capacity to contract with other public agencies to support their risk management, quality enhancement, and staff training goals. CDDER is now engaged in a partnership with Connecticut and is working to establish working relationships with additional public service agencies that support persons with developmental disabilities.