Academic, school health and health department partners for research: Understanding teen male involvement in pregnancy prevention

Teen pregnancy in the United States continues to be a significant public health problem that results in effects that can last a lifetime. These effects include higher school drop out rates and economic difficulties for the teen parent and greater risks for social, health and academic disadvantages for the child. Developing effective strategies to tackle this complex problem demands partnerships between public health, academics and the private sector. This presentation describes an innovative partnership between a public health department, academician, and a school nurse for the purpose of conducting research about male involvement in pregnancy prevention. The purpose of this research was to explore the process of adolescent male involvement in pregnancy prevention. The aims were to understand how teen males participate in reducing the risk of an unintended pregnancy, to explore what adolescent males perceive to be their involvement in decision-making related to the risk of pregnancy, and to develop a more inclusive theory of male involvement in teen pregnancy prevention. This partnership provided a supportive setting for the research study and enabled the researcher to recruit teenage male participants from an urban high school. The findings from this study enabled the public health department and the school community to further understand how males successfully avoid a teen pregnancy and to devise programs to support young males in the future.