Posts Tagged ‘Abstinence Education’

AZ Leads the Way to Reducing Teen Pregnancies

April 10th, 2012

Teen pregnancy is a key public health indicator because of the profound negative health outcomes related to a lack of education and economic opportunity.   For example, only about 50% of teen mothers receive a high school diploma versus approximately 90% of their peers.  The disadvantages caused by a teen pregnancy can last a lifetime- and even spill over to the next generation.  Teen pregnancy is expensive too- costing about $11B per year in increased health care, foster care, incarceration, and lost tax revenue.  That’s why we’ve made reducing teen pregnancy in AZ a key element in our strategic map. 

Today’s good news is that teen pregnancy made a historic drop over the last 3 years in AZ.  In fact, teen pregnancy dropped by almost 30% in AZ over the last 3 years- the steepest decline in the nation.  

How did we get here?  As is the case with most things in public health- our success is tied to a host of interventions and circumstances.  No doubt our community-based contracts under the Personal Responsibility Education Program is a factor along with our federal Abstinence Education contracts.  The study that was published today shows that teens are becoming more educated about how to effectively prevent teen pregnancies and are using that info.  Another factor is probably the economy.  There’s a well known link between lower pregnancy rates in general and challenging economic times. 

The bottom line is that the trend toward lower teen pregnancy rates in AZ and the US is encouraging- but we need to do even better by using tried and true evidence-based practices to keep up the pressure on this important health indicator. 

 

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Teen Pregnancy Prevention Awards

March 21st, 2012

Late last week we awarded two new community-based contracts for the new Personal Responsibility Education Program (PREP) funds: BJ Youth Foundation and Mariposa Community Health Center. PREP is the new federal program from the Affordable Care Act that requires programs educate adolescents on both abstinence and contraception to prevent pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases.  This was our 2nd Request for Grant Applications for this grant.  We awarded four contracts last fall, but still had funding unobligated and some high-risk and under-served areas.  We now have now 6 contractors under this federally funded program: Pima Prevention Partnership, Arizona Youth Partnership, Pinal Hispanic Council, Worthy Institute, BJ Youth Foundation, and Mariposa Community Health Center.  

These new projects augment federal Abstinence Education contracts that began last July.  Pima Prevention Partnership, Arizona Youth Partnership, Catholic Charities, and National Community Health Partners were awarded contracts and will be serving an additional 14,000 youth and parents in 20 communities throughout the state. 

 

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New Teen Pregnancy Prevention Contracts in Place

October 19th, 2011

Last week we awarded 4 community-based contracts for the new Personal Responsibility Education Program funds to prevent teen pregnancy in AZ.  The funding we’ll be passing through to our new contractors is part of the Affordable Care Act- and requires programs educate adolescents on both abstinence and contraception as ways to prevent pregnancy and STDs.  All projects we selected for funding emphasize abstinence as the surest way to avoid pregnancy and STDs. 

The new contractors are Pima Prevention Partnership, Pinal Hispanic Council, Worthy Institute and Arizona Youth Partnership.   Two of these grantees (Pima Prevention Partnership & Arizona Youth Partnership) are also current contractors with us for the Abstinence Education Program, and have many years of experiencing implementing abstinence programs.  Pinal Hispanic Council is a behavioral health provider, and the Worthy Institute is a community-based organized focused on prevention efforts, particularly within the African American community.    

All contracts became effective October 1 with school based services being implemented in January 2012 and community based services being initiated as early as November 2011.  We’ll likely need to do a next round of proposals for services in the targeted areas that were not addressed in the selected contracts- including Mesa West, Glendale Central, Alhambra, Encanto, Phoenix Central City, Tucson Southeast, Tucson North Central, Casa Grande, Coolidge, Florence and Nogales with our remaining $340K. 

These new projects augment the recently awarded federal Abstinence Education contracts which were awarded to  Pima Prevention Partnership, Arizona Youth Partnership, Catholic Charities, and National Community Health Partners on July 1…  serving thousands of youth and partners in 20 communities throughout the state.

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Teen Pregnancy Prevention Resources in AZ

January 18th, 2011

To combat teen pregnancy, ADHS uses multiple approaches that best fit with needs of local communities.  Our Bureau of Women’s & Children’s Health has implemented teen pregnancy prevention programs since 1997 and currently administers the Abstinence Education Program and Comprehensive Education using lottery dollars and new federal funding authorized through the Affordable Care Act.   The federal Title V Abstinence Education Program was reauthorized and funded through June 30, 2014 under federal Health Care reform.  Arizona’s annual award is $1.3M.

The Healthcare reform law also amended Title V (of the Social Security Act) to include a new formula grant program entitled the Personal Responsibility Education Program funded through FY 2014.  The program must be designed to educate adolescents on both abstinence and contraception to prevent pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections.  Our annual award is $1.1M for this new program.  Lottery funds that ADHS receives (about $3M per year) for teen pregnancy prevention serve to meet federal match requirements for Abstinence Education and federal maintenance of effort requirements for the Personal Responsibility Education Program.

Local programs funded by ADHS implement evidence-based strategies, such as:

  • service learning programs which focus on keeping young people constructively engaged in their communities doing community service;
  • youth development programs that take a broad approach to encouraging young people to think and plan for their future;
  • curriculum-based education that is offered as part of regular school classes or in after-school programs; and
  • parent programs that seek to improve parent-child communication.

Parents are very important in preventing teen pregnancy.  A public opinion survey, With One Voice 2010, recently released by The National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy provides some critical insight:

  • Teens (46%) say parents most influence their decisions about sex. By comparison only 20% say friends most influence their decisions.
  • Eight in ten teens (80%) say that it would be easier for teens to delay sexual activity and avoid teen pregnancy if they were able to have more open, honest conversations about these topics with their parents.
  • Six in ten teens (62%) wish they were able to talk more openly about relationships with their parents.

The National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy offers great resources and tips for parents through its parent portal, including the new Talking Back publication identifying the top ten things that teens want adults to know about teen pregnancy.

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