Category B: Building Capacity of State Public Health Depts to Access, Strengthen, and Use Data Related to Better Inform Service Provision for Youth & Young Adults - Despite an established infrastructure of the U.S. Maternal, Child, Adolescent Health (MCAH) public health governmental workforce, adverse outcome disparities persist among adolescents and young adults (AYA) within this crucial developmental period. State/territorial-level MCAH professionals charged with improving access to preventive care, mental health, and other services for AYAs utilize available data to drive program development and implementation. Unfortunately, limitations in national/state/local level datasets, surveys, and published research pertaining to AYAs results in missed opportunities to provide relevant assessment and population-specific services to groups. This is especially problematic for AYA who identify as Black, Indigenous, and other People of Color (BIPOC) or LGBQ+; live in rural or frontier communities; or are otherwise systemically marginalized. Therefore, it is critical that government agencies have the infrastructure needed to obtain and analyze the full spectrum of AYA health data and also work to ensure equity through the AYA data life cycle. With over 70 years of experience and relationships with 59 state/territorial health departments, the Association of Maternal and Child Health Programs (AMCHP) has produced this proposal to assist governmental public health staff in addressing data related challenges that influence assessment and service planning for AYAs. Falling under Category B, this proposal will address the strategic area of Organizational Capacity and Performance Improvement for the workforce segment of MCAH state/territorial health department staff who provide services to, or collect/assess data pertaining to AYAs (i.e., directors, program managers and staff of MCH, AYA, and Children with Special Health Care Needs programs; epidemiologists/data analysts; adolescent health program coordinators). AMCHP aims to bolster the capacity of state and territorial public health department staff to: 1. Identify, navigate, and maximize the use of existing data sources related to AYA health to better inform program and policy development, decision making, resource allocation, and communications for this population domain. 2. Support partnership development, especially among organizations led by and prioritizing the needs of BIPOC, LGBQ+, rural, and other AYA who are marginalized or not included/represented in existing data sets, to drive more inclusive and effective data collection, analysis, and applied decision-making strategies. As a result of this project, we expect to see: • Increased awareness and understanding of data sources, data equity, and inclusion of systematically marginalized AYA populations in AYA-related health data among MCAH health department staff. • Improved capacity and capability among MCAH health department staff to institutionalize data equity into applicable segments of the life cycles of data pertaining to AYA populations. • Increased capacity of MCAH health department staff to develop and maintain diverse partnerships among AYAs that are marginalized or not represented in existing data sources. Proposed activities include conducting environmental scans of current data being used to inform AYA population needs, creating a resource document for MCAH public health staff, and convening an AYA Data Consortium consisting of MCAH staff and a diverse array AYA organizations. Implementing this project would enhance the accessibility and use of AYA data pertaining to health and social/structural determinants of health for its improved application in public health practice. This enhancement will create more holistically informed and evidence-based planning and implementation of responsive programs and policies for all AYAs, and particularly for those that are marginalized or not represented in existing data sources, evaluations, and needs assessments.
