The Young People's Development Programme (YPDP) in England, a government-backed youth development pilot program aimed at reducing teenage pregnancies, drunkenness and cannabis use not only didn't reduce teenage pregnancies or drunkenness or marijuana use, it might actually have increased pregnancies, according to research led by Meg Wiggins of the Institute of Education, University of London and Chris Bonell at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.
They were commissioned by the Department of Health to carry out an independent evaluation of the YPDP, which was initiated in 2004.
YPDP modeled after the US Children's Aid Society-Carrera program, which claimed to have significantly reduced teenage pregnancies in disadvantaged areas of New York city. However, a 2005 study of attempted replications elsewhere in the United States did not find such benefits.
The new study included over 2,500 young people aged 13 to 15 years who were deemed by professionals to be vulnerable or at risk of teenage pregnancy, substance misuse, or school exclusion.
Participants were either taking part in YPDP (intervention group) or a youth program not receiving YPDP funds (comparison group). Measures including pregnancy, weekly cannabis use, and monthly drunkenness were assessed at 18 months.
Key results reveal significantly more pregnancies among young women in the YPDP group than in the comparison group (16% versus 6%). Young women in the YPDP group also more commonly reported early heterosexual experience (58% versus 33%) and expectation of teenage parenthood (34% versus 24%).
Significantly more young people in the YPDP group also reported truanting in the previous six months than in the comparison group.
The authors found no definite explanation for the findings. For example, one obvious explanation is that young people in the YPDP group were more at risk at the start of the study, yet the authors show that YPDP group participants were no more sexually active than those in the comparison group and adjusted for other differences. Other plausible causes may involve participants being exposed to more risky peers and being labelled as problematic.
They conclude that any further implementation of such interventions in the UK should be only within randomized trials.
They also suggest that participants should be targeted by social disadvantage rather than behavioural risk and that wider socioeconomic and education influences on young people's health need to be addressed.
These results suggest that, at best, the program had no impact, and at worst had a negative impact, says Douglas Kirby, a senior research scientist based in the United States.
But this does not mean that all youth development approaches are ineffective, he writes. For example, programmes may be more effective when implemented by charismatic staff, when they facilitate access to reproductive health services, when the staff connect with the teenage participants, or when the staff give a strong clear message about avoiding unprotected sex.
Furthermore, there is evidence that different types of youth development programs can have a positive impact on sexual risk behavior and reported pregnancy rates.
Article: Meg Wiggins, Chris Bonell, Mary Sawtell, Helen Austerberry, Helen Burchett, Elizabeth Allen, Vicki Strange, 'Health outcomes of youth development programme in England: prospective matched comparison study', doi:10.1136/bmj.b2534
Comments
louis vuitton (not verified) | 07/15/09 | 12:02 PM
dutchmarbel (not verified) | 07/08/09 | 06:50 AM
chi (not verified) | 09/01/09 | 21:27 PM
If the population selected for intervention were at high risk. Was it this population that was radomly split in two? if so then the results are of concern.
However, if the high risk popluation was used and compared against a population who were not at risk ie matched for something like: age and socio-economic status then the results are not suprising. The research can add little to the knowledge of how effective the program was. This error could be remedied if a high risk comparison group is found over that time and figures looked at retrospectively. Or a high risk population could be indicated now and looked at in the same time scale as the intervention took place and report on in the future even better doing both would be fantastic. I believe if done by competent researchers this would be really valuable information.
It must be remembered that all research is research and it is what that research showed. Research does not evidence anything.
IT IS ABSOLUTELY NECESSARY TO HAVE MORE KNOWLEDGE READILY AVAILABLE ABOUT HOW TO CHALLENGE RESEARCH FINDINGS. REPORTERS NEED TO CHALLENGE, EXPOSE AND REPORT ON THE SHORT COMINGS OF RESEARCH PROGRAMMES AND METHODS, SO THE PUBLIC CAN BE FULLY INFORMED.