Sunday, May 5, 2024
5/5/2024
The National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy (dba “Power to Decide” [PTD]) in partnership with Child Trends (CT), University of California San Francisco Beyond the Pill Program (UCSF), and the National Association of Community Health Centers (NACHC) will pilot, implement, and rigorously evaluate the promising, innovative clinic decision support intervention, Let’s Talk Birth Control (referred to as “Let’s Talk”). Let’s Talk is a multi-level intervention addressing adolescents and providers that includes both in-person and online components and is feasible to implement in clinical settings. It includes three core components: (1) a printed contraceptive decision aid (CDA) with a QR code that links to the Method Explorer (ME) page on PTD’s online birth control support network, Bedsider (2) Bedsider’s ME, which includes information on the full range of contraceptive methods and a personalized method comparison feature; and (3) an online training for providers on patient-centered contraceptive counseling (PCCC), including use of the CDA to support shared decision-making with adolescent patients. Formative and pre- post-test research provides compelling, positive preliminary evidence that Let’s Talk increases awareness of the full range of methods and knowledge about specific methods and would have value in clinical care. Short duration, clinic-based interventions like Let’s Talk have the potential to address a notable gap in evidence-based teen pregnancy prevention programming. We will use a rigorous experimental cluster randomized-controlled trial (RCT) design with randomization of community health centers (“health centers”) to assess the effectiveness of Let’s Talk compared to standard of care. The evaluation will be conducted with 1,500 adolescent patients assigned female at birth, ages 15-24 years attending 30 health centers, prioritizing those in states or counties in the United States with teen birth rates higher than the national average. Our primary research question addresses whether Let’s Talk reduces rates of penile-vaginal sex without a contraceptive method as this behavioral risk factor is directly linked to unintended teen pregnancy. We have specifically chosen to implement and evaluate Let’s Talk in health centers, which serve a substantial proportion of racial/ethnic minorities and underinsured or uninsured individuals as a way to reduce disparities in adolescent access to contraception and teen births. The Let’s Talk core team (LTCT) consists of four committed organizations, including PTD, a national non-profit leader in adolescent sexual and reproductive health (SRH) and user- and evidence-informed resources, and CT, UCSF, and NACHC who were selected for their expertise and capacity to collaborate on an RCT of this size and scope. PTD will oversee the overall project and LTCT and lead recruitment and implementation activities. CT, an award-winning research and evaluation organization with extensive experience conducting rigorous evaluations of adolescent SRH interventions, will serve as the independent, third-party evaluator and lead the pilot and impact evaluation of Let’s Talk. UCSF, experts in adolescent SRH intervention research and co-developers of the Let’s Talk CDA with PTD, will support planning and implementation of the intervention. NACHC, the leading national advocacy organization for health centers, will support recruitment and advise on implementation given their extensive knowledge of health center workflows. All members of the LTCT will engage in manualizing and packaging the intervention and disseminating findings and lessons learned to maximize the project’s contributions to preventing unintended teen pregnancy and addressing disparities.
HHS’ Tracking Accountability in Government Grants System (TAGGS) website provides access to detailed descriptions of grants, loans, aggregated direct payments and other types of financial assistance awarded by the HHS Operating Divisions (OPDIVs) and the Office of the Secretary Staff Divisions (STAFFDIVs).
