Adolescent pregnancy and sexually transmitted disease rates in the United States are among the highest among developed nations. A survey of female adolescent family planning patients (N = 249) indicated that teens 13 to 16 years of age were more likely than teens 17 to 1 9 years of age to discuss sexual behavior with adult, nonparental relatives (43% vs. 26%, p = .007). Teens with a prior pregnancy were more likely than never-pregnant teens to report parental discussion of contraception choices (83% vs. 53%, p = .004) and of sites for contraceptive care (61% vs. 37%, p = .0023). Adolescents rely on a complex network of family and peers for communication about sexuality. Social work clinical and community skills facilitate family-centered reproductive health training and counseling for improved reproductive health of U.S. adolescents.

Rural U.S. women often experience many barriers to prenatal care involving health care provider shortages, distance to health care, and less health insurance coverage as compared to urban women. Fewer community planning and consumer resources as well as less transportation also often decrease opportunities for rural women to participate in community health planning and assessment. The purpose of this article is to describe social work strategies for empowering rural women in their assessment of community prenatal care systems. A case study of a rural demonstration project addressing prenatal care barriers is presented as well as implications for social work practice.

U.S. rural women encounter many logistical and psychosocial barriers to prenatal care, including high poverty rates, high rates of inadequate health insurance, health care provider shortages, transportation problems and health care systems that may be inadequate or unresponsive to the needs of poor women. The purpose of this article is to describe the role of the social worker in rural communities in the development, implementation and evaluation of a community effort that sought to improve prenatal care through a collaborative of health and human services organizations. The nature of social work participation and the implications for social work are discussed.

The capacity mapping approach can be used to identify existing community resources. As part of this approach, inventories are used to provide information for a capacity map. The authors describe the development of two inventories and a capacity map for public health workforce development. For the first inventory, the authors contacted 754 institutions to determine available public health training resources; 191 institutions reported resources, including 126 directly providing distance learning technologies and courses or modules addressing important competency domains. Distance learning technologies included video conferencing facilities (61%) and satellite download facilities (50%). For the second inventory, the authors obtained information on 129 distance-accessible public health training modules. The workforce development capacity map produced from these two inventories revealed substantial resources available for use by individuals or agencies wishing to improve training in public health competencies.

Objectives. A training needs assessment project tested the use of "universal" competencies for establishing a model training agenda for the public health workforce.Methods. Agency supervisors selected competencies for training priorities. Regional and national public health leaders used these selections to design the model training agenda.Results. The competencies given high priority by supervisors varied among state and local agencies and included some not within the universal set. The model training agenda reflected supervisors' priorities as well as leaders' perspectives.Conclusions. The universal competencies provide a useful starting point, but not necessarily an exclusive framework, for assessing and meeting the training needs of the public health work-