Conducting rigorous research with subgroups of at-risk youth: lessons learned from a teen pregnancy prevention project in Alaska.

Conducting rigorous research with subgroups of at-risk youth: lessons learned from a teen pregnancy prevention project in Alaska. Int J Circumpolar Health. 2016 Jan;75(1):31776 Authors: Hohman-Billmeier K, Nye M, Martin S Abstract In 2010, Alaska Department of Health and Social Services (DHSS) received federal funding to test an evidence-based teen pregnancy prevention program. The grant required a major modification to an existing program and a randomized control trial (RCT) to test its effectiveness. As the major modifications, Alaska used peer educators instead of adults to deliver the program to youth aged 14-19 instead of the original curriculum intended age range of 12-14. Cultural and approach adaptations were included as well. After 4 years of implementation and data collection, the sample was too small to provide statistically significant results. The lack of findings gave no information about the modification, nor any explanation of how the curriculum was received, or reasons for the small sample. This paper reports on a case study follow-up to the RCT to better understand outcome and implementation results. For this study, researchers reviewed project documents and interviewed peer educators, state and local staff, and evaluators. Three themes emerged from the data: (a) the professional growth of peer educators and development of peer education, (b) difficulties resulting from curriculum content, especially for subpopulati...
Source: International Journal of Circumpolar Health - Category: International Medicine & Public Health Tags: Int J Circumpolar Health Source Type: research