title: Evidence That Classroom-Based Behavioral Interventions Reduce Pregnancy-Related School Dropout Among Nairobi Adolescents.
abstract: To evaluate the effect of behavioral, empowerment-focused interventions on the incidence of pregnancy-related school dropout among girls in Nairobi's informal settlements.
  
  
  
  Retrospective data on pregnancy-related school dropout from two cohorts were analyzed using a matched-pairs quasi-experimental design. The primary outcome was the change in the number of school dropouts due to pregnancy from 1 year before to 1 year after the interventions.
  
  
  
  Annual incidence of school dropout due to pregnancy decreased by 46% in the intervention schools (from 3.9% at baseline to 2.1% at follow-up), whereas the comparison schools remained essentially unchanged ( p < .029). Sensitivity analysis shows that the findings are robust to small levels of unobserved bias.
  
  
  
  Results suggest that these behavioral interventions significantly reduced the number of school dropouts due to pregnancy. As there are limited promising studies on behavioral interventions that decrease adolescent pregnancy in low-income settings, this intervention may be an important addition to this toolkit.
authors.affiliation: 1 Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA.
authors.forename: Clea
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Sarnquist
authors.affiliation: 2 UJAMAA USA, San Francisco, CA, USA.
authors.forename: Jake
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Sinclair
authors.affiliation: 3 UJAMAA Africa, Nairobi, Kenya.
authors.forename: Benjamin
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Omondi Mboya
authors.affiliation: 3 UJAMAA Africa, Nairobi, Kenya.
authors.forename: Nickson
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Langat
authors.affiliation: 4 No Means No Worldwide, San Francisco, CA, USA.
authors.forename: Lee
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Paiva
authors.affiliation: 1 Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA.
authors.forename: Bonnie
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Halpern-Felsher
authors.affiliation: 1 Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA.
authors.forename: Neville H
authors.initials: NH
authors.lastname: Golden
authors.affiliation: 1 Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA.
authors.forename: Yvonne A
authors.initials: YA
authors.lastname: Maldonado
authors.affiliation: 1 Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA.
authors.forename: Michael T
authors.initials: MT
authors.lastname: Baiocchi
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D001521:Behavior Therapy / Q000379:methods*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007630:Kenya; D011203:Poverty; D011209:Power, Psychological; D011247:Pregnancy; D011253:Pregnancy in Adolescence / Q000517:prevention & control* / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D012189:Retrospective Studies; D013332:Student Dropouts / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*
keywords: adolescent; behavioral intervention; global health; pregnancy