142nd APHA Annual Meeting and Exposition

Annual Meeting Recordings are now available for purchase

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Online Lessons Help College Students Prevent Unplanned Pregnancy

142nd APHA Annual Meeting and Exposition (November 15 - November 19, 2014): http://www.apha.org/events-and-meetings/annual
Tuesday, November 18, 2014 : 4:30 PM - 4:50 PM

Chelsey Connolly , College Initiatives, The National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy, Washington, DC
Colleges are focused intensely on improving low rates of completion, especially among community college students.  While it has not historically been addressed by many colleges, unplanned pregnancy increases the risk of dropping out or taking longer to complete.  In fact, 61% of women who have children after enrolling in community college fail to finish their degrees, and unplanned births account for nearly 10% of all dropouts among female students at community colleges.  For these reasons, The National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy developed three short interactive lessons that instructors can easily integrate into a variety of college courses.  The lessons, called “Preventing Unplanned Pregnancy and Completing College,” help students understand the impact of unplanned pregnancy and how to prevent it.  Students are exposed to accurate and engaging information about the full range of contraceptive methods, identify the most effective methods for them, and formulate an action plan to obtain such methods.  In 2012-2013, the lessons were evaluated at three community colleges.  Pre/post results found significant positive improvements in student knowledge, attitudes, and behavioral intent regarding unplanned pregnancy.  The presenter will describe the design and content of the lessons, how they were used in different college settings, and how students and faculty responded.  Working with college students is an innovative and effective way to reduce unplanned pregnancy among older teens and young adults overall, and evaluation results demonstrate that a short, inexpensive online intervention offers a promising and scalable approach.

Learning Areas:

Administer health education strategies, interventions and programs
Implementation of health education strategies, interventions and programs
Other professions or practice related to public health
Public health or related education
Public health or related research
Social and behavioral sciences

Learning Objectives:
Demonstrate how to use three free online lessons about preventing unplanned pregnancy and list ways to provide them to college students Discuss the evaluation at three college sites and how the online lessons improved student knowledge, attitudes, and behavioral intent regarding unplanned pregnancy

Keyword(s): College Students, Reproductive Health

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Qualified on the content I am responsible for because: I have been with The National Campaign to Prevent Unplanned Pregnancy since 2007 and managed the College Initiatives program since its creation for the last two years. I provided content expertise for the online lessons, Preventing Unplanned Pregnancy and Completing College, helped design the evaluation component, and drafted the report that summarizes the results of the evaluation.
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: 4458.0: College Health Initiatives