HOPE- An Adolescent Pregnancy Prevention Program Dominique Brown MPH 515 Principles of Health Behavior Dr. Brodie December 20, 2013

Introduction  Adolescent pregnancy is not a new threat to public health. It’s roots reflect deep on societal values, norms, beliefs. It paints a picture of what the consequences are of oversexualization and misinformed sexual education in society does to youth.  An effective pregnancy prevention program analyzes the predominant risk factors that are closely linked to teen pregnancy.

Teen Pregnancy Information  Adolescent pregnancy is described as the pregnancy of a young woman between the ages of  In 2012, just over 305,000 babies were born to teen girls between the ages of 15 and 19 (OAH, 2013).  Adolescent pregnancy costs U.S. taxpayers billions of dollars due to lost revenue in taxes, increased public assistance payments, increased rates of foster care & criminal justice services, and greater public health expenses (OAH, 2013).  With this said, there is an irrefutable need for effective teen pregnancy prevention programs.

H.O.P.E Hope through Outreach and Prevention Education is an adolescent pregnancy prevention program that was designed applying the socio-ecological model as its foundation. It’s development was created out of awareness of the deeply rooted social issues that factors into the teen pregnancy epidemic. The program encourages a strong effort to tackle teen pregnancy through awareness and education surrounding the benefits of adopting safer sex behaviors. HOPE is aware that it is not the first program to focus its efforts on reducing teen pregnancy, and has studied the highlights of past and present programs and in doing so has established a strong program that hopes to combat this epidemic.

Population Chosen  “Low-income communities have the highest teen pregnancy rates in the U.S” (abc NEWS, 2012).  According to WHO, ninety-five percent of babies born to adolescent mothers worldwide will occur in teen girls from low- and middle- income.  For this reason, the program is targeted toward low income teenage girls.

The Socio-Ecological Model  The socio-ecological model was chosen as the foundation to develop the teen pregnancy prevention program, HOPE.  This model reflects on the ecological factors that are at the root of teen pregnancy and allows a prevention program to direct its efforts toward tackling these issues.  “The evidence shows that the social condition in which a person is born, lives, works, and ages, is the single most important determinant of one’s health status” (Hernandez-Jennings, 2012).  In this regard, to create change in a population, an effective approach must examine the multi level social determinants that impact teen girl’s lives.

Use of Theory in Practice  The socio-ecological model comprises several levels: societal, community and organizational, interpersonal, and individual, that reflects on both social and ecological influences that impact adolescent pregnancy. HOPE designed intervention approaches at each level to attack teen pregnancy and encourage the adoption of safer sex practices.  On the societal level, HOPE examines society’s values, norms, policies, depictions and messages that are sent out about sex. HOPE encourages reflective discussions on portrayals of sex in mass media during the program. HOPE explores health insurance policies and accessibility to prevention services during group discussions that promote awareness of innovative policy changes.  On the community and organizational level, HOPE focuses on how organizations in the community like schools, community health centers and places of worship are providing sex education, if at all, to youth in the community. HOPE works with respected leaders in the community to disseminate comprehensive information about sex education.  On the interpersonal level, HOPE explores familial and peer influences associated with teen pregnancy. HOPE encourages parents and other guardians to participate in monthly sessions to help foster better relationships between these young women and their parents. These monthly sessions will include answering parents’ questions regarding talking to their teens about sex. HOPE also recognizes the importance of peer influence and will hold frequent youth friendly events like game and movie nights to encourage peers to join the program.  On the individual level, HOPE concentrates on increasing individual knowledge, self confidence, and teaching better decision making skills as a way to approach the individual influences most often associated with teen pregnancy.

Basic Constructs of HOPE’s program  Essentially, HOPE focuses on increasing awareness and providing a comprehensive sex education in an attempt to reduce teen pregnancy and increase safer sex practices.  Each stage of the socio-ecological model allows a health professional to intervene and create prevention strategies that will elicit change at that level of influence.  In this regard, applying the socio-ecological approach as a reference to aid in the success of helping young women through this program, HOPE tackles social and ecological influences at each level with different activities, exercises, and health promotion movements in an effort to provide the most effective approach.  Since prevention requires understanding the factors that influence behaviors, HOPE was designed as a program that analyzes behavior as a result of its many influences.

Conclusion  HOPE believes that applying a model that examines both the social and ecological roots of teen pregnancy will be the most effective approach to tackling this epidemic that has deep roots in social issues. HOPE seeks to learn from past approaches, campaigns and programs that focused on teen pregnancy prevention and encourage innovative ways to delve into reducing teen pregnancy rates and increasing the adoption of safer sex practices.