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What Is the Evaluation of Adolescent Pregnancy Prevention Approaches?

Two Teens, boy and girl.The Evaluation of Adolescent Pregnancy Prevention Approaches (PPA) is an opportunity to assess the effectiveness of a broad range of teen pregnancy prevention approaches. The evaluation will document and test a range of teen pregnancy prevention approaches, including comprehensive sex education, abstinence education, and sexually transmitted disease (STD)/HIV prevention programs, in up to eight program sites. In each evaluation site, the project team will conduct a rigorous experimental evaluation to determine the impact of the program on youth, and will document the services received and how each intervention is delivered. This evaluation is related to recent federal efforts focused on preventing risky sexual behavior and pregnancy among adolescents, including the Teen Pregnancy Prevention (TPP) Initiative and the Personal Responsibility Education Innovative Strategies (PREIS) programs. It is expected that some of the PPA evaluation sites will be selected from among TPP and PREIS grantees. In such cases, grantees’ local evaluators will be expected by OAH to work in support of the PPA evaluation.

This website is designed to communicate information about the evaluation. The information may be of interest to the general public, as well as program developers and policymakers.  It may be particularly helpful to entities such as school districts, schools, and community-based organizations that are implementing or considering implementing a pregnancy prevention program.  Materials concerning the evaluation will be added to this website over time.  For a description of the Evaluation of Adolescent Pregnancy Prevention Approaches, click here. For answers to frequently asked questions about the evaluation, click here.

Why Study Adolescent Pregnancy Prevention?   What Will We Learn from the Evaluation? 

Awilda The goal of the study is to provide rigorous evidence on the effectiveness of promising programs for youth. The aim is not to test the effectiveness of programs or program types against each other. Rather, the study will assess each selected program on its own, compared to a control group in the same site, made up of youth who are not offered similar services. By doing so, the study will generate evidence that states and communities need about effective interventions. The evaluation will address three main questions: Dale

How are specific pregnancy prevention programs expected to work? The PPA evaluation will document the programs participating in the evaluation to answer questions such as: What are their underlying philosophies and missions? What resources do they require? What local partnerships and support are crucial, and how are parents and community organizations involved? What curricula are used? How long and intensive are the programs intended to be for participants? How are the programs different from alternative services available locally? How, if at all, do programs build on related services and activities?

How well are the programs delivered? How much do youth actually participate, and what are their views of the programs? Are the messages and services they receive different or more intensive than what is available to other youth in the area who are not involved in the programs? How closely do messages and activities correspond to a program’s vision? What factors affect participation? How does the local community context affect a program?
  • What is the impact on youth? Do the pregnancy prevention programs increase rates of contraceptive use and/or abstinence? Do they reduce the rate of teen pregnancies and the incidence and risks of STDs? Which groups of teens are more or less affected? How are impacts related to quality of implementation?

Components of the Evaluation

This multi-year evaluation includes four stages:

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  1. Seeking guidance and input from stakeholders and programs. The project began with intensive outreach to policy leaders, program operators, and researchers to ensure that the evaluation focuses on the most promising examples of each program type and addresses concerns from program and policy perspectives.
  2. Identifying and selecting evaluation sites. The evaluation team and DHHS have been publicizing the evaluation, clarifying the opportunity it offers local programs, to help lead the way in increasing the evidence base of programs that reduce teen pregnancy. Discussions have been held with interested program sponsors and potential sites, which might include school districts, community organizations, or pregnancy prevention coalitions. Discussions are also being held with TPP and PREIS grantees as part of the outreach to identify a range of pregnancy prevention approaches suitable for the federal evaluation. These discussions are focusing on how the PPA evaluation would be carried out, how it would fit with local program plans, and how selection as a PPA evaluation site would affect the grantee’s evaluation plans. Based on this outreach, DHHS and the evaluation team will select up to eight sites to participate, including some that have received TPP or PREIS grants and others that have not. The evaluation team will provide onsite technical assistance to local programs to ensure they can perform their role in supporting the evaluation and to minimize the burden on them.
  3. Documenting program implementation. The evaluation team will monitor and report on how programs operate. Careful case studies will be conducted, based on field visits, interviews with program staff, discussions with participants, and program data. This information will help participating sites improve their programs, and will guide other organizations that might consider replicating programs to understand what is involved.
  4. Measuring impacts. The PPA evaluation team will estimate impacts by comparing outcomes for randomly assigned program and control groups. Sites will be selected only if there is a clear difference between the program to be tested and services available to the control group. Two random assignment designs will be used, depending on program setting:

    Required Classes in School: The evaluation team will develop, with interested districts, a plan to randomly select schools to adopt the chosen curriculum. Outcomes for youth in these schools will be compared to outcomes for youth in the other schools where the program is not offered and no similar services or classes are provided.

    Elective Programs After or Outside School: For such voluntary programs, the evaluation team and program staff will develop a plan for randomly selecting youth to be served from among those eligible. Outcomes for youth selected to participate will be compared with outcomes for youth not selected.

    In both cases, the evaluation team will collect baseline data from youth who agree to participate in the evaluation, with parental consent, and then administer two follow-up surveys. The survey data will be used to measure program impacts on teen pregnancy and associated risk behaviors.