Innovation in OPA Grant Programs

OPA Grant Programs: Innovating Together

TPP Innovation Grants Show Positive Evaluation Results

OPA’s TPP program is a national, evidence-based program that funds diverse organizations working to prevent teen pregnancy across the United States. OPA funds the exploration, development, testing, and rigorous evaluation of new and innovative interventions to significantly reduce teen pregnancy disparities and advance the field of adolescent sexual health. Investing in teen pregnancy prevention programs helps adolescents reach their full potential.

Overview

“Innovation is the ability to generate and execute new ideas—incremental, evolutionary, or revolutionary—and it starts with creativity. Creativity is the ability to look past the obvious—to transcend traditional ways of seeing the world to create something new.” - from IDEO

Innovation in the Office of Population Affairs (OPA) refers to a community-driven and disciplined process of finding solutions to some of our most complex public health challenges. It also reflects a broad spectrum of new or adapted products, programming, strategies, approaches, interventions, policies, and practices that propel our mission of advancing health across the reproductive lifespan. OPA embeds innovation values and methods in all we do, but we especially promote it in and across our Teen Pregnancy Prevention (TPP) and Title X family planning grant programs. OPA convenes, builds community, and makes connections across our diverse innovators.

  • Innovation Funding: OPA funds grants, cooperative agreements, and prize challenges that support community-based innovations to improve health outcomes.
  • Innovation Community: Learn more about emergent innovations from our growing community of sexual and adolescent health innovators.
  • Learning and Dissemination: OPA shares learnings with the field through journal articles, videos, conferences, and more.

Innovation Funding

OPA funds six adolescent sexual health Innovation Hubs to foster innovation, conduct research, and expand the evidence to support and advance equity in the Teen Pregnancy Prevention (TPP) program. Our Innovation Hub “Incubators” are recruiting teams to explore needs in the field and build new innovations. Our Innovation Hub “accelerators” help teams with existing innovations further test and refine them. All Innovation Hubs are seeking applicants for their Innovation Development Teams (IDTs), with whom they will support and collaborate on adolescent sexual health innovation projects. Get more information about each Innovation Hub and assess which one might be the right fit for your adolescent health team.

HHS OASH Office of Population Affairs Adolescent Sexual Health Innovation Hubs: In/Tend, ETR, Youthink, Breakthrough Accelerator, Launch Innovation, and Policy and Research

OPA funds additional grants, cooperative agreements, and prize challenges that support community-based innovations to improve health outcomes. Learn about all active OPA innovators below:

Innovation Community

In May 2023, OPA convened 50 innovation teams from the TPP program, Title X, and our research and evaluation grants to build relationships, workshop their innovations, and fine tune their design skills. Four showcase videos resulted from that event. Watch our compilation video to learn more about how OPA integrates innovation into our grant programs. Watch the other three video shorts to learn more specifically about innovations for engaging and supporting families, advancing adolescent health equity, and improving health care access and service delivery.

Innovation in OPA Grant Programs: Overview
Innovation in OPA Grant Programs: Overview

Watch this compilation video to learn more about how OPA integrates innovation into our grant programs.

Still of an animation showing a young person speaking with a health care provider in a clinic.
Improving Health Care Access and Service Delivery through Innovation

Watch this short video to discover how OPA grant recipients are innovating to improve health care access and service delivery.

Fostering Parenthood Podcast theme art displays a cartoon figure with a lightbulb speech bubble and another cartoon figure with a heart speech bubble.
Engaging and Supporting Families through Innovation

Watch this short video to discover how OPA-funded innovation projects are engaging caregivers and supportive adults in adolescent health.

Video still of two youth and one adult walking and smiling during a conversation in a field.
Advancing Adolescent Health Equity through Innovation

Watch this short video to discover how OPA grant recipients are co-creating innovations with young Black men and youth impacted by the juvenile justice and child welfare systems.

Learning and Dissemination 

Still of Teen Pregnancy Prevention Program (TPP) Continuum Create, identify, and scale effective approaches in communities across the country.
TPP Innovation-to-Scale Continuum

Through the Teen Pregnancy Prevention (TPP) program, OPA invests in an innovation-to-scale continuum, where organizations funded under various initiatives are creating, identifying, and expanding the reach of innovative, effective approaches in communities across the country. Discover how each of OPA’s TPP grantee cohorts supports each other.

 

Teen Pregnancy Prevention Program (TPP) continuum diagram

Individual in Doctors Office.
A Prevention Science Journal Supplement on TPP Innovation (2010-2023)

Explore OPA’s first-ever journal supplement focused on innovation in the TPP program: https://link.springer.com/journal/11121/volumes-and-issues/24-2/supplement. 

adult and adolescent talking together

Still of Title X Innovation Lab where 14 innovators from Title X and TPP showcased their unique products, strategies, and tools for nearly 200 Title X grantee conference participants.
Title X Innovation Lab

At the 2023 national Title X Family Planning Grantee Conference, OPA hosted our first-ever Innovation Lab where 14 innovators from Title X and TPP showcased their unique products, strategies, and tools for nearly 200 Title X grantee conference participants. This event demonstrated the need for community-building and person-to-person sharing around innovations. OPA intends to host similar innovation labs at its major conferences going forward.

Innovation Lab

Photo of TPP program staff and participants happily holding a banner that reads: Welcome 2 LiFT.
HHS Teen Pregnancy Prevention Evidence Review (TPPER)

The 2023 HHS Teen Pregnancy Prevention Evidence Review (TPPER) identified nine new programs, seven from OPA, as showing evidence of effectiveness. These programs aim to improve sexual and reproductive health outcomes, promote positive youth development, and advance health equity for adolescents, their families, and communities.

Photo of TPP program staff and participants happily holding a banner that reads: Welcome 2 LiFT.

Complex donut figure titled, "How the Innovation and Impact Networks Navigated the Innovation Pipeline." Refer to infographic linked in paragraph for details.
Teen Pregnancy Prevention Tier 2 Innovation and Impact Network Grants: Developing Innovative Interventions

From 2020-2023, the Office of Population Affairs (OPA) awarded 13 Teen Pregnancy Prevention Tier 2: Innovation and Impact Network grants. These grants are part of OPA’s overall Tier 2 grant strategy to increase the number of promising approaches to prevent unintended teen pregnancy that can then be rigorously evaluated to expand the availability and diversity of evidence-based programs. Learn more in this infographic illustrating the work of the Tier 2 Network. (PDF is pending final review for Section 508 compliance. For immediate assistance, please contact opa@hhs.gov.)

Complex donut figure titled,

Prevention Science Supplemental Issue: Evidence from the TPP Program's Experiment with Innovation

OPA is excited to share the Special Issue on Evidence from the Teen Pregnancy Prevention Program Experiment with Innovation, our first-ever journal supplement focused on innovation in the TPP program. Our special supplement encompasses 15 articles from innovation grant recipients over the years, highlighting critical findings related to innovation impacts, implementation science, network development, evaluation-readiness, intervention development, and more. It also includes an introduction from OPA that explores how the TPP program adapted and refined its approach for fostering dynamic innovation-to-scale projects, as well as a special commentary from the Partnership for Public Service.

Explore all the open access articles below: