Practical Approaches to Evaluating Progress and Outcomes in Community-Wide Teen Pregnancy Prevention Initiatives

Abstract

This paper presents an overview of the key evaluation components for a set of community-wide teen pregnancy prevention initiatives. We first describe the performance measures selected to assess progress toward meeting short-term objectives on the reach and quality of implementation of evidence-based teen pregnancy prevention interventions and adolescent reproductive health services. Next, we describe an evaluation that will compare teen birth rates in intervention communities relative to synthetic control communities. Synthetic controls are developed via a data-driven technique that constructs control communities by combining information from a pool of communities that are similar to the intervention community. Finally, we share lessons learned thus far in the evaluation of the project, with a focus on those lessons that may be valuable for local communities evaluating efforts to reduce teen pregnancy.

Advancing the Field of Teenage Pregnancy Prevention Through Community-Wide Pregnancy Prevention Initiatives

“…For example, the sites in New York and North Carolina used different but complementary approaches for documenting changes in the types of strategies they used to link teens to sexual and reproductive health services [8,9]. Another source of data were the records and documents kept by the technical assistance providers, providing an opportunity to ascertain what investment was necessary in establishing "training of trainers" models [10]. Finally, some sites, such as the one in South Carolina, used focus group data on African-American and Latina teens' perceptions regarding contraceptives and satisfaction with services to redesign new approaches and strategies [11].…”

Strategies to Build Readiness in Community Mobilization Efforts for Implementation in a Multi-Year Teen Pregnancy Prevention Initiative

“…The readiness assessment can help gauge the stage of readiness and inform appropriate strategies to build readiness capacity. To determine the overall success of the project at reducing teen birth rates in Holyoke and Springfield relative to other similar communities, a quasi-experimental outcome evaluation is underway [18].…”

Atención psicosocial a adolescentes embarazadas, víctimas de violencia, en un hospital de Santo Domingo

“…Muchos autores han convergido en la idea de que la calidad de la relación entre las adolescentes y sus padres juega un papel clave tanto en la prevención primaria [3][4][5] como en los programas de intervención con jóvenes embarazadas y madres [6][7][8][9] . Un estudio en Ecuador 10 con 70 adolescentes embarazadas mostró que el factor de riesgo más importante para salir embarazada en la adolescencia fue la pertenencia a una familia disfuncional.…”