142nd APHA Annual Meeting and Exposition

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Enhancing Sexual Risk Avoidance through Service Learning Initiatives

142nd APHA Annual Meeting and Exposition (November 15 - November 19, 2014): http://www.apha.org/events-and-meetings/annual
Monday, November 17, 2014

Susan Cardenas, PhD, CHES , Department of Public Health Sciences, New Mexico State University, Las Cruces, NM
Mark Kittleson, PhD , Department of Public Health Sciences, New Mexico State University, Las Cruces, NM
Success With Adolescent Goals (SWAG) is a Title V program funded through the New Mexico Department of Health and administered by the Department of Public Health Sciences at New Mexico State University. New Mexico is a border state with one of the highest teen pregnancy rates in the country. Seven counties with the highest teen pregnancy rates were selected to participate. The SWAG Program encourages sexual risk avoidance among students ages 12-17: an evidence-based curriculum (24 hours), service learning (27 hours), and mentoring/parental involvement components. Through service-learning, young people use classroom lessons to solve real-life problems by developing an understanding of relevant issues, the importance of setting goals, serving in the community, and planning to achieve educational success.

Studies have shown strong evidence that service learning programs have a positive impact on adolescents and are effective at delaying sex initiation or reducing adolescent pregnancy. Some adolescents have fewer protective factors available to them while at the same time being exposed to a higher dose of risk factors.  Service Learning is a program intervention that has been found to increase protective factors and to decrease exposure or susceptibility to risk factors. SL helps to build protective factors such as increasing self-efficacy and developing a sense of connectedness to the community, and strategies can be implemented across all settings regardless of social, economic, and environmental conditions.

This presentation will provide detailed information on the implementation and outcome of the Service Learning component of the SWAG Program.

Learning Areas:

Diversity and culture
Planning of health education strategies, interventions, and programs

Learning Objectives:
Identify components of and types of service learning. Explain how Service Learning can build protective factors for increasing sexual risk avoidance Describe ways to integrate Service Learning into sexual risk avoidance initiatives

Keyword(s): Teen Pregnancy, Behavioral Research

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Qualified on the content I am responsible for because: Susan Cardenas is a professor in the Department of Public Health Sciences at New Mexico State University. Areas of interest include sexuality education, women's health, and program planning. Dr. Cardenas has worked extensively in public health in southern New Mexico since 1990, and she is a Certified Health Education Specialist (CHES). She serves as Program Manager of SWAG--a sexuality education/service learning/mentoring initiative that is a collaboration between NMSU and the NM Department of Health.
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.

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