Since 2010, the Office of Adolescent Health (OAH), now part of the Office of Population Affairs (OPA), has conducted evaluations as part of its Teen Pregnancy Prevention (TPP) grant program. The first set of evaluations focused mostly on documenting the work of the TPP grantees and the effects of those programs in their communities. OPA is now in its second phase of evaluations. These new projects aim to provide greater detail about how the different components of TPP programs work together. This deeper view ideally can help improve how communities approach TPP efforts, bring context to research, and strengthen how new programs are designed.
What We Hope to Learn About TPP
The second phase of OPA TPP evaluations builds upon the evidence base set by the evaluations of the FY2010-14 grantee cohort. In addition to the evaluations conducted by each of the FY 2015-2019 grantees, OPA conducted broad research studies:
- Meta-Analysis of Federally Funded TPP Programs: This project makes use of data from evaluations already completed by OPA and the Administration for Children and Families (ACF) Personal Responsibility Program (PREP). Looking across these evaluations will allow the researchers to efficiently see what factors shape the effectiveness of TPP programs.
- Evaluation of the TPP Tier 1B Grant Program: This evaluation looks collectively at the efforts of the Tier 1B TPP grantees to scale up TPP programs. It includes a qualitative study to understand experiences of programs trying to reach youth who are most at risk for teen pregnancy.
What We Have Learned So Far About TPP Programs
The bulk of OPA’s current TPP research portfolio comes from the evaluations of the individual TPP grantees in the FY 2010-2014 cohort. Overall lessons learned from the evaluations were summarized for both the Tier 1 and Tier 2 grant programs. Additionally, the American Journal of Public Health published a special issue on TPP efforts that featured some of the results. Beyond these grantee-led evaluation efforts, OPA also sponsored overarching research studies on TPP:
- Teen Pregnancy Prevention Replication Study: Initiated in 2010, this study examines whether three program models that were commonly chosen by TPP grantees and widely implemented by organizations working to prevent teen pregnancy can achieve impacts with different populations and settings.
- Adolescent Pregnancy Prevention Approaches (PPA) Study: The PPA study was an experimental study focused on assessing the implementation and impacts of innovative strategies and untested approaches for preventing teenage pregnancy.
- Sustainability Study of Former TPP Programs: This study investigated whether and in what from programs were able to continue operating after federal funding ended.