Youth Empowerment Information, Data Collection, and Exploration on Avoidance of Sex

2017-2021

The goal of this project is to collect data that will inform educational topics and strategies for an optimal-health sexual risk avoidance (SRA) approach to reducing teen pregnancy and improving youth well-being.  The project will identify strategies, skills, messages, and themes that are most likely to resonate with youth.  The project will inform hypotheses on how to increase the effectiveness of sex education approaches so that more youth avoid the risks associated with teen sex, and teen pregnancy rates are reduced.

A number of data collection activities will be conducted with youth and parents to understand teen pregnancy prevention issues and identify key mechanisms of action for program models.

This project is being conducted under contract to Mathematica Policy Research and is overseen by the Office of Planning, Research, and Evaluation, in collaboration with other partners at the Administration for Children and Families and HHS’ Office of the Assistant Secretary for Health.

Point(s) of contact: Caryn Blitz and Kathleen McCoy.

Related Resources

This brief spotlights Healthy Visions, a Sexual Risk Avoidance Education (SRAE) grantee in Cincinnati, Ohio. Healthy Visions, like other SRAE grant-funded programs, aims to teach adolescents to avoid sexual activity while also providing education and support related to personal responsibility, self-regulation, goal setting, healthy relationships...