141st APHA Annual Meeting

In This section

280477
Strategies to retain adolescent study participants in longitudinal teen pregnancy prevention studies

Tuesday, November 5, 2013

Hilary Demby, MPH , The Policy & Research Group, New Orleans, LA
Alethia Gregory, LMSW , The Policy & Research Group, New Orleans, LA
Kartis Lewis , The Policy & Research Group, New Orleans, LA
Implementation of high quality, rigorous studies in the field of adolescent health is imperative to build the evidence-base about what works and does not work in preventing teen pregnancy. This presentation targets public health professionals and researchers who are implementing and actively engaged in data collection for rigorous longitudinal studies of teen pregnancy prevention curricula. It will focus on best practices to improve adolescent study participant retention rates at follow-up data collection points.

The presentation will discuss evidence-based practices related to participant retention, specifically the Engagement, Verification, Maintenance, and Confirmation Protocol, designed to achieve high follow-up rates among youth enrolled in longitudinal studies. It will then describe the real-life application of these practices within the context of teen pregnancy prevention research being conducted in an urban environment with a primarily African American adolescent population. The presenter will share how these practices have been used and adapted to achieve high retention rates among youths enrolled in a longitudinal randomized control trial (RCT). Summary results of a focus group conducted with adolescent RCT pilot participants about these retention strategies will also be shared. The presenter's goal is to ensure that participants not only learn about evidence-based practices and their real-life applications, but also recognize how these models and other solutions or strategies can address the specific barriers they may be experiencing in their longitudinal studies. Participants will acquire skills that will have an immediate impact on the quality and quantity of the data collected for their longitudinal studies.

Learning Areas:
Conduct evaluation related to programs, research, and other areas of practice

Learning Objectives:
Identify evidence-based practices designed to improve follow-up retention rates among adolescents enrolled in longitudinal studies. Formulate evidence based strategies to increase retention rates of African American adolescents enrolled in longitudinal teen pregnancy prevention studies in an urban environment.

Keywords: Evaluation, Teen Pregnancy Prevention

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Qualified on the content I am responsible for because: I have concurrently managed the day-to-day implementation of two federally funded, five-year Randomized Control Trials (RCT) studying teen pregnancy prevention curricula. I have also managed and implemented monitoring and evaluation plans for multiple other federally funded projects addressing the following public health issues: homelessness, disaster recovery and emergency readiness, substance abuse and HIV prevention, and school safety.
Any relevant financial relationships? No

I agree to comply with the American Public Health Association Conflict of Interest and Commercial Support Guidelines, and to disclose to the participants any off-label or experimental uses of a commercial product or service discussed in my presentation.

Back to: 4374.0: Prevention of teen pregnancy