title: Practical Approaches to Evaluating Progress and Outcomes in Community-Wide Teen Pregnancy Prevention Initiatives.
abstract: This paper presents an overview of the key evaluation components for a set of community-wide teen pregnancy prevention initiatives. We first describe the performance measures selected to assess progress toward meeting short-term objectives on the reach and quality of implementation of evidence-based teen pregnancy prevention interventions and adolescent reproductive health services. Next, we describe an evaluation that will compare teen birth rates in intervention communities relative to synthetic control communities. Synthetic controls are developed via a data-driven technique that constructs control communities by combining information from a pool of communities that are similar to the intervention community. Finally, we share lessons learned thus far in the evaluation of the project, with a focus on those lessons that may be valuable for local communities evaluating efforts to reduce teen pregnancy.
authors.affiliation: Division of Reproductive Health, National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Atlanta, Georgia. Electronic address: htevendale@cdc.gov.
authors.forename: Heather D
authors.initials: HD
authors.lastname: Tevendale
authors.affiliation: ICF International 3 Corporate Square, Atlanta, Georgia.
authors.forename: D Susanne
authors.initials: DS
authors.lastname: Condron
authors.affiliation: ICF International 3 Corporate Square, Atlanta, Georgia.
authors.forename: Lucas Godoy
authors.initials: LG
authors.lastname: Garraza
authors.affiliation: Division of Reproductive Health, National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Atlanta, Georgia.
authors.forename: L Duane
authors.initials: LD
authors.lastname: House
authors.affiliation: Division of Reproductive Health, National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Atlanta, Georgia.
authors.forename: Lisa M
authors.initials: LM
authors.lastname: Romero
authors.affiliation: ICF International 3 Corporate Square, Atlanta, Georgia.
authors.forename: Megan A M
authors.initials: MA
authors.lastname: Brooks
authors.affiliation: ICF International 3 Corporate Square, Atlanta, Georgia.
authors.forename: Christine
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Walrath
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D003153:Community Health Services / Q000379:methods*; D005006:Ethnicity; D019317:Evidence-Based Medicine / Q000379:methods*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D011247:Pregnancy; D011253:Pregnancy in Adolescence / Q000517:prevention & control*; D015397:Program Evaluation / Q000379:methods*; D012736:Sex Education / Q000379:methods*; D014481:United States; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: Evaluation methodology; Performance measurement; Pregnancy in adolescence; Primary prevention; Synthetic control