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The United States has the highest teen birth rate in the developed
world. However, for the most recent period for which national statistics
are available (1991-1996), the teen birth rate has exhibited a steady
decline. We cannot say with certainty why it has been dropping. The
question asked by community leaders, service providers, practitioners,
legislators, policymakers, funders, and researchers, alike, is "what
works" to prevent pregnancy and STD/HIV/AIDS among teens?
To help answer that question, we created the PASHA Program Sourcebook: Promising Teen Pregnancy and STD/HIV/AIDS Prevention Programs. This Sourcebook provides in-depth descriptions of 23 programs in the Program Archive on Sexuality, Health and Adolescence (PASHA). PASHA is a public-use archive comprised of programs judged by a Scientist Advisory Panel to be effective in changing sexual risk-taking behavior in youth. The Sourcebook begins with an introductory chapter, Teen Pregnancy Prevention: Do Any Programs Work?, which describes the problem of teen pregnancy in the United States, presents different ways of framing the problem, and then outlines possible solutions to the problem. One of the primary solutions presented in this introductory chapter is the replication and re-evaluation of effective prevention programs. Twenty-three of these effective programs comprise the focal point for the remaining chapters of the Sourcebook. Each chapter describes one of the primary pregnancy prevention, secondary pregnancy prevention, or STD/HIV/AIDS prevention programs in PASHA, along with a summary of the evidence for their effectiveness.
In answering the question, "what works," it is important to understand the details of each of these programs. These details are essential, because it is not a generic program, e.g., a "school-linked clinic," that works; rather, it is a particular school-linked clinic with its particular set of associated counseling and outreach activities that is successful. To that end, each chapter of the Sourcebook provides information regarding the program's target population, the schedule and nature of activities comprising the intervention, and requirements for implementing the program. A description of the original program evaluation, including how the evaluation was designed and what the evaluation results showed, is also presented.
The PASHA Program Sourcebook is intended to be a resource for all individuals interested in learning about and developing promising prevention programs for teens.
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