Use of Small Grants to Support and Enable Innovation in Teen Pregnancy Prevention

Abstract

Over the years, the number of programs shown to be effective in preventing teen pregnancy has increased. While support continues to grow for evidence-based programs (EBP), gaps and disparities in current EBPs oblige the development of new and innovative approaches. Funded by the Office of Adolescent Health from the Department of Health and Human Services, the iTP 3 project was charged with supporting and enabling the development of innovative teen pregnancy prevention programs. The iTP 3 project, administered at Texas A&M University, awarded small grants of approximately $100,000 to 15 organizations across the United States to develop innovative programs to prevent teen pregnancy among underserved populations. This paper describes the funding and selection criteria of awardees, evaluation methods, characteristics of programs/ideas and corresponding organizations, capacity building assistance provided to program developers, and selected accomplishments. Small grant programs, such as that discussed here, can serve as models for others interested in working with program developers to create innovative programs.

Using Human-Centered Design to Develop an Innovative Teen Pregnancy Prevention Program: Lessons Learned from a Case Study

“…While it takes time to develop meaningful programs, developers should be conscious of their momentum and progress to complete the program before too much time has passed, causing the program to be outdated. Program development is, or should be, an iterative process that continuously incorporates user feedback, allows for failure and accepts when ideas do not work, and moves beyond initial ideas likely to be ineffective (Garney et al, 2019;Wilson et al, 2018Wilson et al, , 2017. One common method is the development of rapid prototypes used to elicit user feedback to make adaptations early on in the development process (Ferguson, 2018;Hawkins et al, 2017).…”

Supporting and Enabling the Process of Innovation in Public Health: The Framework for Public Health Innovation

“…Health disparities are complex, and the root causes are often intertwined with interpersonal, social, and political structures; therefore, a systems approach is needed to understand and address the ecological determinants of public health problems [ 9 ]. Public health innovations should be developed through multidisciplinary and community-based collaborations, and should involve iteration to ensure that newly developed innovations are effective and accepted by the intended target population [ 10 ].…”