Youth outcomes for pregnant and parenting teens participating in cuídate

Teen pregnancy is an important public health issue. Within Massachusetts, some of the highest teen birth rates and racial/ethnic disparities in teen birth rates can be found in Holyoke and Springfield. Youth First (YF), a Massachusetts based teen pregnancy prevention initiative, seeks to ensure that youth, particularly high-risk populations, have access to evidence-based teen pregnancy prevention (TPP) programs. Currently, only one evidence-based program (EBP) designed for pregnant and parenting teens exists. YF adapted the EBP Cuídate, a culturally-based program to reduce HIV sexual risk behavior among Latino youth, for use with pregnant and parenting teens.

As a part of YF, an outcomes evaluation was conducted with all youth who participated in the EBPs. YF's local evaluators, the Institute for Community Health, conducted pre- and post-surveys with participants to measure if participating in an EBP improved youth outcomes, such as sexual health knowledge, skills and intended behavior changes. Cuídate has been shown to be effective with Latino youth, however, it's effectiveness among pregnant and parenting teens has not been researched. These results provide a unique opportunity to assess the successes and challenges with using EBPs among high-risk populations. Additionally, the preliminary results will add to the field of TPP programming by assessing the effectiveness of using Cuídate with pregnant and parenting teens.

The shared data includes: 1) participant attendance and program fidelity data, and 2) changes in sexual health knowledge, attitudes and intended behaviors. The data can inform other organizations interested in implementing and evaluating TPP programs with similar populations.