Evaluating evidence-based programs to prevent teen pregnancy: Findings from the Office of Adolescent Health, Teen Pregnancy Prevention program

In 2010, the Department of Health and Human Service (HHS), Office of Adolescent Health (OAH) was established to support the funding and evaluation of evidence-based programs to address teen pregnancy prevention (TPP) across the country.  This was one of six evidence-based policy initiatives currently funded across the federal government and the first to focus solely on interventions with evidence behind them.  OAH has invested heavily in evaluation efforts through federal evaluation studies and rigorous grantee-led evaluation studies.  A total of $100 million in competitive, five-year grants were awarded to 94 non-profit and public agencies in 37 states and the District of Columbia.  There are 35 grants currently conducting rigorous evaluations of their programs: 17 focused on replicating existing evidence based programs and 18 focused on testing new and innovative programs.  Additionally, there are 16 evaluations by federal contractors conducting randomized control trials: nine of the evaluations focus on replications of existing evidence based programs and seven on new and innovative programs.

As the fifth and final year of this cohort of TPP grants concludes in August of 2015, OAH is collecting and analyzing final impact evaluation reports from all grantees to determine the overall findings and lessons learned.  This presentation will summarize the OAH evaluation work and present an overview of the findings from across 35 rigorous grantee-led evaluations and two large Federal evaluations.  The presentation will discuss the implications of the findings for others working to prevent teen pregnancy, using evidence-based programs, and conducting rigorous evaluation.