State and local health departments collaborate to prevent teen pregnancy

Collaboration between state and local health departments can create opportunities for improvements in programs, policies and systems which may not have occurred otherwise. CityMatCH – the national membership organization of local maternal and child health (MCH) leaders – and the Association of Maternal and Child Health Programs (AMCHP) – the national membership organization of state MCH leaders – have long worked together to develop better collaborations between state and local public health entities. In March 2006, CityMatCH and AMCHP entered a partnership to forge working relationships between and among state and local representatives (including community-based coalitions) working on teen pregnancy prevention. An application process, which required the formation of state:local partnerships, garnered the selection of nine teams to participate in a Teen Pregnancy Prevention Roundtable and Training. During the training, each state:local team worked together to create an action plan for implementing science-based approaches to prevent teen pregnancy in their communities. Team-reported benefits from working across different levels of government include strengthened relationships and shared resources. Initial evaluation data from the state:local teams also shows application processes (i.e. identifying team members) for the training built new connections that helped participants in their work [mean 4.2: scale of 1 (disagree) – 5 (agree)], and the training increased motivation of team members to collaborate with local/state organizations and work together to reduce teen pregnancy [Response of Yes: 82%; No: 17%]. Additional evaluation results, barriers to collaboration, and lessons learned from state:local public health collaboration will be shared.