Oah/cdc's integrating services, programs, and strategies through a community-wide initiative: Ensuring culturally and linguistically appropriate programs and reproductive health care services to youth though the implementation of the working with diverse communities strategies guided by best practice

Despite recent declines, U.S. teen birth rates remain higher than rates in other industrialized nations and racial/ethnic disparities persist. To fully engage and work with diverse communities (WDC), strategies guided by best practice, with demonstrated effectiveness, can be used to: inform and address the needs of diverse populations; identify, reach, and serve hard-to-reach youth with teen pregnancy prevention (TPP) programs and services; engage and recruit a diverse group of community partners who are not typically engaged to collaborate in their community's TPP efforts; provide evidence-based programs that meet the needs of youth from diverse communities and retain youth in those programs; ensure that program facilitators and clinical providers have the necessary skills and knowledge to provide culturally and linguistically appropriate programs and adolescent friendly clinical reproductive health services; and engage and educate a diverse group of community stakeholders on the root causes of teen pregnancy and how social determinants of health are linked to teen pregnancy. This presentation will provide a comprehensive list of strategies guided by best practice for use in working with diverse communities, corresponding assessment tools to ensure consistent and quality implementation of said best practices, and lessons learned during the implementation of the WDC best practices from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)/Office of Adolescent Health (OAH) Teen Pregnancy Prevention Project, a community-wide demonstration project to reduce rates of teen pregnancy and births in communities with the highest rates, focusing on African American and Latino/Hispanic youth aged 15–19 years.