Building adolescent health capacity

About the research

Today, in 2005, an adolescent-specific infrastructure is in place. Adolescent medicine physicians are trained to treat patients 11 to 21 years old; academics researching facets of the adolescent experience have found a home in likeminded university departments and scholarly journals; governmental agencies collect data on adolescent health behaviors and outcomes; and non-governmental institutions offer youth development grants, services, and programs. Despite the inclusion of adolescents in both the private and public sector, adolescent health remains fragmented, clustered by issue rather than by age or risk.  Tobacco, alcohol, injury prevention, and sexuality education are too often separate from one another, estranged by funding streams and bureaucracies. The adolescent health coordinator position, located in each of the fifty states’ health or human service departments, aims for reconciliation, or at least cross-communication. Financed by Title V Maternal and Child Health Block Grant dollars, the adolescent health coordinator position serves, or is intended to serve, as both a hub and conduit of information and expertise. If/when successful, the adolescent health coordinator position brings a unified voice to state adolescent health efforts, providing a broader vantage point to narrow, single-issue programs and services. But, when is the adolescent health coordinator position successful? What does success look like to state adolescent health coordinators, supervisors, and stakeholders? And what contextual factors must be in place in order to achieve such success? Answers to these questions are not only instructive to adolescent health coordinators but can also help adolescent health advocates from the public and private sectors spend limited resources and more effectively craft the adolescent agenda.

When is the adolescent health coordinator position valuable to state adolescent health efforts?

How can the value of the adolescent health coordinator position be maximized?

This research was generously supported by the W.T Grant Foundation and by the Stanford Undergraduate Research Office. Thank You!