1. Grant Programs
  2. Teen Pregnancy Prevention Program
  3. Teen Pregnancy Prevention Successful Strategies
  4. The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio

The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio

Published 2016

UT Teen Health

Highlights

Capacity Building to Support Replication of Evidence-Based TPP Programs Grant (Tier 1A): $3.75 million over five years

  • UT Teen Health is providing capacity building assistance through training, technical assistance, and support to organizations in Texas that will enable them to offer evidence-based teen pregnancy prevention programs to youth, including pregnant and/or parenting youth, youth in out-of-home care, and youth in juvenile detention.
  • UT Teen Health is working with five organizations throughout Texas to reach 7,500 youth in Bexar County, Texas and surrounding jurisdictions.

Replicating Evidence-Based TPP Programs to Scale in Communities with the Greatest Need Grant (Tier 1B): $10 million over five years

  • UT Teen Health will reach 87,500 youth ages 15-19 in Bexar County.
  • In Bexar County, UT Teen Health is implementing nine different evidence-based teen pregnancy prevention programs; providing young people with referrals to youth-friendly healthcare services; building community support for teen pregnancy prevention; and working with one Youth Leadership Council (YLC) and one Community Advisory Group.
  • UT Teen Health is serving some of the most vulnerable youth including youth in foster care, juvenile detention, and pregnant and/or parenting teens by implementing multiple evidence-based programs in after-school programs, community settings, faith-based organizations, and middle and high schools.

Overview

In 2015, the HHS Office of Adolescent Health (OAH) awarded 84 Teen Pregnancy Prevention (TPP) program grants, which are expected to reach 1.2 million youth over the course of the five-year project. Some of the grantee organizations, including The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio—UT Teen Health, had been previously funded by OAH and are now building on earlier successes by expanding efforts to reach more youth in more settings with evidence-based programs.

UT Teen Health began in 2010 with two grants: one from OAH to rigorously evaluate an innovative teen pregnancy prevention program in high schools and one from OAH and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to implement a community-wide teen pregnancy prevention initiative. Through these projects, UT Teen Health reached more than 12,000 youth with evidence-based programs in school districts and community-based organizations over five years. UT Teen Health expanded their work with additional funding in 2015 and will reach almost eight times the number of youth in Bexar County and other Texas counties by 2020.

About UT Teen Health

The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio—UT Teen Health is an initiative to advance adolescent health and wellness by providing medically accurate sexual health information to the community and encouraging positive youth development strategies by promoting healthy life choices.

The goal of UT Teen Health’s Tier 1A project is to provide capacity building assistance to statewide organizations implementing youth programs with expectant and parenting youth and youth in foster care and juvenile detention. The goal of the Tier 1B project is to reduce the teen birth rate by 15 percent among females ages 15-19 in Bexar County by 2020.

Why It Matters

The OAH TPP program and UT Teen Health are important investments in reducing the rates of teen births in this country. The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio—UT Teen Health project:

  • Addresses a need. Although there has been a decline in teen birth rates in Bexar County, the county’s teen birth rate is still almost double the national rate.
  • Reaches some of the most vulnerable youth. Across Texas, the foster care, juvenile justice, and teen parent populations are especially vulnerable and at increased risk for unplanned pregnancy. UT Teen Health is working to increase agencies’ abilities to provide evidence-based programs that will promote positive outcomes for these populations.

UT Teen Health by the Numbers

  • National Teen Birth Rate (2014): 24.2 per 1,000 females ages 15-19
  • Texas Teen Birth Rate (2014): 37.8 per 1,000 females ages 15-19
  • Teen Birth Rate in Bexar County (2014): 37.4 per 1,000 females ages 15-19

For more information or to schedule a site visit, contact:

Kristen Plastino, M.D.
UT Teen Health Program Director
(210) 567-7036
utteenhealth@uthscsa.edu
http://www.utteenhealth.org/

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About the Office of Adolescent Health TPP Program

The OAH Teen Pregnancy Prevention program is a national, evidence-based program that funds diverse organizations working to prevent teen pregnancy across the United States. OAH invests in the implementation of programs identified as evidence-based by the HHS Teen Pregnancy Prevention Evidence Review and provides funding to develop and evaluate new and innovative approaches to prevent teen pregnancy.