Expanding the Evidence: Adolescent Health Innovation and Research

The roster of evidence-based adolescent sexual and reproductive health programs is vast and deep. But it also has gaps; many communities and populations (like Native youth and youth in foster care) are underrepresented.

Innovation and research are critical to filling these gaps. Supporting, translating, and disseminating research on adolescent health and well-being is one of the key goals outlined in Take Action for Adolescents – A Call to Action for Adolescent Health and Well-Being; doing so can help to advance policies, programs, and practices that support youth. 

In 2023, the Office of Population Affairs funded six innovation-focused TPP grantees, called Innovation Hubs. Each Hub will support (financially and otherwise) Innovation Development Teams (IDTs) as they discover, test, and refine solutions that meet unmet needs in adolescent sexual and reproductive health.

Think your organization has something to offer? The Hubs are now recruiting organizations for their IDTs. While all Hubs aim to elevate equity and prioritize youth and underrepresented groups, each has a unique focus. 

• In/Tend is looking for teams with diverse backgrounds and wide-ranging lived experiences who are ready to experiment, play, and create innovative, equity-focused prototypes for real-world challenges.
• youthink seeks teams that want to explore problems or gaps in their community and develop solutions with the support of innovation training, expert coaches, and funding.
• RYSE (Reimagining Young People’s Sexual Health Equity) is focused on novelty and uplifting youth voices to promote young people’s sexual health and reduce teen pregnancy, sexually transmitted infections (STIs), and their associated risk factors.
• Breakthrough is helping teams refine, test, and scale equity-focused ideas that have shown promise in improving the sexual and reproductive health of adolescents.
• Launch seeks teams that have received initial feedback on their innovation from end users and will support continued development and refinement of approaches that address current gaps in evidence and promote equity across youth sexual health outcomes.
• TISH (Theory & Innovation Support) aims to test and refine engaging theory-based programs with involvement from the populations they’re developed for.

Stay tuned for updates on how these IDTs come together and how the next generation of ideas and interventions in adolescent health evolve.