Adolescent Health
2018 Annual Report
Priority Need: Obesity
NPM 8: Percent of children ages 6-11 and adolescents ages 12-17 who are physically active at least 60 minutes per day.
Population Domain: Adolescent Health
Adolescent Health Obesity Reduction Program Objective
Arkansas’s Adolescent Health Program continues to increase opportunities for physical activity for children and adolescents. This objective has been attained by developing and implementing new policies; using frameworks to identify opportunities and build capacity; building strong stakeholder relationships; and providing professional development opportunities and technical assistance to those doing the work. The most recent federally available data (2018) on the percent of Arkansas’s children ages 6-11 and adolescents ages 12-17 who are physically active at least 60 minutes per day indicates the following:
- 28.6% of children ages 6-11 were physically active at least 60 minutes per day
- 17.2% of adolescents ages 12-17 were physically active at least 60 minutes per day
The 2018 United States Report Card on Physical Activity for Children and Youth stated 21.6% of 6-19 year-old youth met the physical activity guidelines of 60 minutes per day. The report card provided the following gender, age, and ability insights:
- 35% of high school boys but only 18% of high-school girls reported participating in at least 60 minutes of daily physical activity
- Children aged 6-11 years participated in 88 minutes of daily physical activity compared to adolescents aged 12-15 who participated in 33 minutes per day and those aged 16-19 who participated in 26 minutes per day
- Children with mobility limitations engaged less in physical activity than those without limitations. Only 58% of boys aged 5-11 years with long-term mobility limitations met physical activity recommendations compared to 75% of boys without limitations.
Current Activities Related to Obesity Reduction
Objective 1
Increase opportunities for physical activity for children and adolescents.
Strategies that support this objective are:
1.1 Working with Arkansas Children’s Hospital to encourage schools to use the GoNoodle for classroom brain breaks.
1.2 Working with the Child Health Advisory Committee, Arkansas Coalition for Obesity Prevention, and Healthy Active Arkansas to encourage schools and communities to support environments and policies that encourage physical activity and healthy nutrition.
Strategy 1.1. Working with Arkansas Children’s Hospital to encourage schools to use GoNoodle, which is an online resource for teachers and parents to use with children and includes mindfulness and physical activities.
Funding from Arkansas Children’s Hospital allows every teacher and home participant in the state to have free access to fun and engaging mindfulness and physical activity videos from GoNoodle. Categories of videos range from guided dance and workout to breathing and stretching with an educational component for each one including, but not limited to, vocabulary, sentence structure, pattern recognition, and math. Each video lasts a few minutes and is intended to be used as a brain break for students who need a quick break to release some energy or to get calm and focused. For the 2017-2018 school year there were 7,018 active teachers using GoNoodle in classrooms on 791 school campuses which provided 169,501 children with 66,114,833 minutes of GoNoodle movement.
Strategy 1.2. Working with the Child Health Advisory Committee, Arkansas Coalition for Obesity Prevention, and Healthy Active Arkansas to encourage schools and communities to support environments and policies that encourage physical activity and healthy nutrition.
In 2018, the Child Health Advisory Committee made recommendations to the Arkansas Board of Education and the Arkansas Board of Health to better align with national best practices regarding:
- Engaging leaders to take ownership in promoting health and wellness
- Improving student and staff access to healthy foods
- Improving student access to quality physical education and quality nutrition education
- Enhancing awareness of environmental factors among decision and policymakers
These recommendations were accepted by both boards and promoted within the state by the Arkansas Department of Health’s school health services staff, community health program specialists, and community health nurse specialists. These recommendations were additionally supported by passing of the following acts:
- Act 428 of 2019: To create the Hunger-free Students’ Bill of Rights; to require a school to provide a meal or snack; to allow a school to collect money owed; and to prohibit a school from stigmatizing a student unable to pay for a meal.
- Act 506 of 2019: To establish a farm-to-school and early childhood education program; and to create the position of a farm-to-school and early childhood education program coordinator within the Arkansas Agriculture Department.
- Act 641 of 2019: To allow for extended learning opportunities through unstructured social time; to require a certain amount of time for recess; and to consider supervision during unstructured social time as instructional.
- Act 841 of 2019: To create the Primary Prevention Programs Act.
The Child Health Advisory Committee is in the process of developing recommendations to present to the boards in the 2020 fiscal year. The recommendations will address the connection between mental health and obesity; improvements to access to care for students with obesity; improvements to the nutritional environment of out-of-school time programming; a statewide parent engagement assessment to address declining parent involvement in various aspects of the student experience including BMI assessment results; and increased access to information and training for physical education instructors to implement best practices for comprehensive physical health education programming.
The ADH’s School Health Services Program works with the Arkansas Coalition for Obesity Prevention to encourage the implementation of joint use agreements between school districts and their communities. Schools that sign these agreements receive funding to support opportunities for physical activity within their community. The ADH’s School Health Services staff provide assistance to communities and schools on how to best share the space.
Additionally, in partnership with Healthy Active Arkansas, the School Health Services Program provided training, technical assistance, and resources to support opportunities to increase access to free (fluoridated) drinking water in school districts by having water-bottle policies, strategic pricing of non-nutritive beverages, and grant-writing trainings.
Joint use agreement grants promote healthy lifestyles through community partnerships by encouraging schools and other community organizations to share indoor and outdoor spaces, such as gymnasiums, athletic fields, playgrounds, and walking tracks. The agreements increase opportunities for children and adults to become more physically active and lead healthier lifestyles. In total, 222 joint use agreements have been funded to create safe places for students and community members to play and exercise in and out of school time. Infrastructure that promotes an active lifestyle is a necessary component in the achievement of education and health goals.
Other Programmatic Activities Related to Obesity Reduction
Arkansas Act 641 of 2019
The Arkansas Legislature mandated that at least 40 minutes per day be used for recess during the school day for students that attend public elementary schools beginning in the 2019-2020 school year.
Arkansas House Bill 1608 of 2019
The state will conduct a study of adverse childhood experiences for the purpose of improving the lives of Arkansas’s children. This is notable as mounting evidence describes the connection between obesity and adverse childhood experiences. The bill did not pass as a law but did move to an interim study.
Arkansas Act 1220 of 2003
Arkansas Act 1220 of 2003 was created to support an increase in obesity prevention efforts in order to create healthier school and community environments for children (http://www.arkleg.state.ar.us/assembly/2003/R/Acts/Act1220.pdf). The state’s Act 1220 Coordinators work with school wellness committees and community leaders to increase awareness about the importance of physical activity, proper nutrition, and health screenings. As mentioned above, staff in the School Health Services program promote joint use agreements between local school districts and communities statewide; encourage use of model policies that promote physical activity, nutrition, and hydration; annually review each school’s School Health Index: Self-Assessment & Planning Guide submission in Indistar; and provide support to the Child Health Advisory Committee.
Arkansas’s Big Health Problems and How We Plan to Solve Them
The ADH created a report in 2013 that described some of the major health concerns in the state and defined key variables that affect health outcomes. The report, Arkansas’s Big Health Problems and How We Plan to Solve Them, includes goals and strategies to address the identified health problems, one of which is obesity.
The goal for increasing life expectancy by reducing chronic diseases is: Increase the percentage of Arkansans of all ages who take part in regular physical activity.
Strategies that support this goal are:
- Increase education on the importance of exercise.
- Start a statewide media campaign to increase public awareness of the effects of obesity and physical inactivity on health.
- Use worksites as health promotion venues, reaching adult Arkansans to create a culture of health and changing unhealthy habits around smoking, obesity, and physical activity.
- Give recommendations for Arkansans on how to make physical activity a part of their daily schedules.
The plan is in the process of being updated. The new plan will continue to include this goal and supporting strategies.
Arkansas Department of Health’s Strategic Plan
The ADH’s Strategic Plan for 2016–2019 includes a goal area focused on childhood obesity prevention. Objectives that support this goal are:
- By 2019, increase the proportion of infants who are exclusively breastfeeding at three months of age from 29.1% to 35%.
- By 2019, increase the percentage of schools in which students cannot purchase soda pop or fruit drinks (that are not 100% juice) from vending machines or at the school store, canteen, or snack bar from 81.6% to 90%.
- By 2019, promote economic growth and safety in Arkansas communities by enhancing places for physical activity and incorporating multimodal transportation design principles in all community design processes.
- By 2019, increase the number of Early Childhood Education Centers that exceed Arkansas’s state licensure requirements for food service, nutrition, and physical activity from zero to 20.
Healthy Active Arkansas.
In 2015, Governor Asa Hutchinson launched Healthy Active Arkansas (https://healthyactive.org/), a framework for improving the health of Arkansans by reducing obesity and obesity-related illnesses by 2026. The initiative, led by 12 organizations, has nine priority areas:
- Physical and Built Environment
- Nutritional Standards in Government, Institutions, and the Private Sector
- Nutritional Standards in Schools (early child care through college)
- Physical Education and Activity in Schools (early child care through college)
- Healthy Worksites
- Access to Healthy Foods
- Sugar-Sweetened Beverage Reduction
- Breastfeeding
- Marketing Program
The ADH is one of the lead agencies for this initiative. Staff members from the Office of Health Communications and the Child and Adolescent Health Section participate in various priority area workgroups.
School Health Services
The offices of School Health Services at the ADH and the Arkansas Department of Education continue to help schools develop wellness committees. They also work together to develop policies that promote physical activity, physical education, nutrition education, and improvements to the nutritional environment. Obesity reduction and prevention efforts in 2018 included:
- Participating in activities supporting the Governor’s Healthy Active Arkansas initiative
- Providing nutrition and physical activity professional development opportunities for school district staff
- Providing technical assistance to support the development of wellness policies
- Providing playground stencils to schools to enhance their paved spaces for students to have more activities during recess time or physical education class
The ADH’s School Health Services Program provided $2,000 sponsorships to support pilot programs in eleven local Student Wellness Advocacy Group (SWAG) Chapters.
- Yellville-Summit High School (Yellville-Summit School District)
- Ouachita High School (Ouachita School District)
- Concord High School (Concord School District)
- South Side Bee Branch High School (South Side Bee Branch School District)
- Dollarway High School (Dollarway School District)
- Conway High School (Conway School District)
- Heber Springs Middle School (Heber Springs School District)
- Ashdown Junior High School (Ashdown School District)
- Pottsville High School (Pottsville School District)
- J.A. Fair High School (Little Rock School District)
- Clinton High School (Clinton School District)
Chapter members include an advisor five or more students who participated in eleven webinars, two activities, and one advocacy project during the school year. Eligible participants included schools and juvenile detention centers that met the following criteria:
• Any non-profit, junior high or high school (grades 7-12) that does not currently have a Project Prevention Youth Coalition.
• Any non-profit, charter junior high or high school (grades 7-12) that does not currently have a Project Prevention Youth Coalition.
• Any non-profit, juvenile detention facility (grades 7-12) that does not currently have a Project Prevention Youth Coalition.
No juvenile detention center applied for the sponsorship. One hundred and seventy-three students participated in the 2018-2019 SWAG initiative.
The participants of the program participated in webinars focused on nutrition, physical activity, mental health, tobacco prevention, and hydration. The students completed two advocacy projects and four advocacy activities. In addition, they attended a conference that provided an opportunity for students to present their projects, activities, and recommendations to better engage the youth population in public health initiatives. The SWAG Conference held on April 24, 2019, allowed students to present their tobacco and other health related projects and activities, share success stories, and discuss how public health could better include youth perspectives in health initiatives. There were 65 attendees including a Coordinated School Health partner from SHAPE America, the Wellness Coordinator from the Arkansas Department of Education, and representatives from the ADH’s Tobacco Prevention and Cessation Program, which provided the funds for the sponsorships. The ADH’s School Health Services team coordinated activities, led discussions, provided support throughout the day, and is planning to replicate the project for the 2019-2020 school year.
In July 2017, the ADH’s director for the Coordinated School Health Program served on a panel at the School Health Conference in Benton, Arkansas. This was a statewide conference with school personnel, public health, and education leaders in attendance. The panelists included three students and the Coordinated School Health Program director. When asked what is needed most in schools regarding health all of the students expressed a need for more sex education and more realistic sex education in schools. One female from Malvern spoke courageously and at length about the lack of meaningful content and her desire to see an increase in the time allowed for sex education in health classes. The student panel at the 2019 SWAG conference noted the need for more sex education as well.
Professional Development for School District Staff
The ADH’s Coordinated School Health Program provided three professional development opportunities for school wellness coordinators in the areas of nutrition and physical activity. The meetings were funded by the 1801 grant from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. These meetings provided coordinators with 18 hours of professional development around active recess, physical education curriculum, after school or out of school time programs, and mental health. Coordinators also learned about programs such as:
- Arkansas AWARE (Advancing Wellness and Resiliency in Education), a comprehensive school-based mental health program;
- Comprehensive school physical activity programs; and
- GoNoodle, an online program that helps get kids moving with short, interactive activities that keep them engaged and motivated throughout the day (https://www.gonoodle.com/).
The Coordinated School Health program also invites partners from state agencies and coalitions to present or speak to program-funded priority school districts (Blytheville, El Dorado, Magazine, Malvern, Marvell-Elaine, and Springdale) about related programs at these meetings. Partners include:
- Arkansas Coalition for Obesity Prevention
- Arkansas Department of Education
- Arkansas Department of Health
- Arkansas Hunger Relief Alliance
- Arkansas Out of School Network
- SHAPE (Society of Health and Physical Educators) America
- University of Arkansas Cooperative Extension Service
- University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences
Technical Assistance for Wellness Policies
The Healthy Active Arkansas sugar-sweetened beverage reduction team works to cultivate the habit of drinking water rather than non-nutritive, sugar-sweetened beverages. The team works to increase access to water, provide tools and education to students and staff, and support current oral health programming in Arkansas schools. After receiving grants from the Arkansas Delta Dental Foundation ($35,000 in 2017 and $45,000 in 2018), Healthy Active Arkansas offered Rethink Your Drink: Choose Water! sub-grants to K-12 Arkansas schools. Over the last two years more than 280 applications were received and 65 sub-grants have been awarded to more than 50 school districts. The goals of the grants and accompanying Rethink Your Drink toolkit were to decrease sugar-sweetened beverage consumption, body mass index, and dental caries in Arkansas students by creating the habit of drinking fluoridated water in place of sugar-sweetened beverages. While Healthy Active Arkansas does require quarterly reporting from the recipients for the first year of instillation of water bottle filling stations, assessing the achievement of these goals will best be assessed through trend data. Upon compilation of data reported for the 2018-2019 (2017 sub-grantee recipients) school year the program should be able to provide qualitative data such as increased interest in water consumption, better student engagement, and an increased school culture of health.
Priority Need: Child Safety Due to Intentional Injury
NPM 9 (New): Percent of Adolescents, ages 12-17, who are bullied or who bully others.
Objectives
- Decrease bullying among adolescents, ages 12-17.
- Decrease suicide rates among adolescents, ages 12-17.
Evidence-based or informed Strategy Measures
- Number of bullying/suicide prevention presentations delivered by the Arkansas Department of Health’s community health program specialists and community health nurse specialists.
-
Percent of adolescents, ages 12 through 17, who are bullied or who bully others. (Attachment NPMs 9.1 and 9.2)
- Percent bullied in Arkansas (32.2%) compared to the U.S. (24.1%) (YRBSS, 2017)
- Percent bullied in Arkansas (24.5%) compared to the U.S. (21.0%) (NCHS, 2016-2017)
High quality and effective school mental health promotion has been linked to increases in academic achievement and positive changes in school and classroom climate (Mental Health America, 2019). Efforts to address mental health concerns in adolescents are ongoing in Arkansas. The following School Mental Health milestones were accomplished in 2018:
• SAMHSA provided $9 million to fund the Arkansas AWARE project to advance wellness and resiliency in education through best practice school-based mental health sites. Arkansas AWARE funds a statewide infrastructure for Mental Health First Aid (MHFA) training.
• Schools are now recognized as sites of service within the state’s Outpatient Behavioral Health System.
• Over 20 Arkansas schools participated in the National School Mental Health Census through SHAPE America.
• Arkansas Children’s Hospital funded two School Nurse Mental Health Forums to offer additional education for school nurses on topics related to mental health.
• Trainings and resources were offered to promote Trauma Sensitive Schools.
Priority Need: Access to Care
NPM 15: Percent of Children, ages 0-17, who are continuously and adequately insured.
Objective
- Increase the percent of children, ages 0-17, who are continuously and adequately insured.
Evidence-based or -informed Strategy Measures
- Collaborate with Arkansas Advocates for Children and Families to monitor the insurance status of mothers and children.
- Develop partnerships to assist in health care insurance enrollment for families.
Most children in Arkansas are eligible for health insurance coverage. It is important to assist families in enrollment and reenrollment as continuous coverage is necessary to obtain health services. Seventy-one percent of Arkansas’s children ages 0-17 are insured compared to 68% in the U.S. Almost 74% of Arkansas’s children ages 12-17 are insured compared to 65% in the U.S.
Delays in coverage can result in lack of vaccinations, health issue exacerbations, and increased stress on families and providers. Besides providing comprehensive physical and mental health services, the forty-plus school-based health centers assist families with enrollment in the state’s Medicaid program. The ADH’s partners like Arkansas Advocates for Children and Families monitor insurance coverage for children and adults in poverty. In addition, the Natural Wonders Partnership Council’s Access to Care workgroup meets monthly to address this issue.
Priority Need: Sexual Health of Adolescents
SPM 6: Teen birth rate for females 15-19 years
Adolescent Health Sexual Health Program Objective
Arkansas’s Adolescent Health program continues to support efforts to decrease the teen birth rate for 14-19 year olds to match the national rate. The most provisional data (Arkansas Health Statistics Branch, 2018) on the rate of birth (per 1,000) for Arkansas’s teenagers indicates the following:
- 30.7 births per 1,000 females ages 15-19 years’ of age (N=2,970 births)
- 11.8 births per 1,000 females ages 15-17 years’ of age (N=687 births)
- 59.3 births per 1,000 females ages 18-19 years’ of age (N=2,283 births)
Current Activities Related to Sexual Health of Adolescents
Objective 1
Decrease the teen birth rate for 14-19 year olds to match the national rate.
Strategies that support this objective include:
1.1 Develop a communication strategy to promote adolescent health.
1.2 Develop a data kit on teen pregnancy for health professionals, educators, and policy makers.
1.3 Examine attitudes, perceptions, and barriers toward contraception use of target population.
1.4 Identify and build relationships with community partners to provide social activities that promote teen pregnancy prevention.
Strategy 1.1: Develop a communication strategy to promote adolescent health.
The ADH’s Office of Health Communications is working with the agency’s Teen Pregnancy Prevention workgroup to develop a media campaign for this purpose. The campaign will include print materials as well as targeted media ads.
The Teen Pregnancy Prevention workgroup developed pamphlets about healthy teen relationships, talking with teens about relationships (for parents), and the path to a healthy relationship. The pamphlets are written in English and Spanish. The Healthy Teen Relationships pamphlet includes information on characteristics of healthy and unhealthy relationships; descriptions of what physical, emotional, psychological, and sexual abuse can include; what smart choices look like; how to prepare for a relationship; and where to go to get more information on these topics.
The Parent Fact Sheet includes information about the importance of talking with teens so they can make good decisions and remain healthy. In addition to providing links to resources, the fact sheet advises communicating about what healthy and unhealthy relationships look like; how to talk about family values; how to talk about sexuality; the importance of open communication and spending quality time with teens; and using the ABLE method:
- Always answer honestly
- Be brief and to the point
- Leave the door open for further discussion
- End with a positive comment
The Path to a Healthy Relationship youth flyer provides information about communication skills, what a healthy relationship looks like, risks of sexual activity, how to be safe, and believing in yourself. Each flyer was reviewed in-house and approved for focus group testing, which occurred in summer 2018 (See below).
Strategy 1.2: Develop a data kit on teen pregnancy for health professionals, educators, and policy makers. The Family Health Branch developed a data deck for this purpose, which is available on the agency website and can be accessed by the public (https://www.healthy.arkansas.gov/images/uploads/pdf/Spring_2018_Teen_Pregnancy_Data_Deck_FINAL.pdf). It includes data about:
-
Births Among Teens
- Birth rates, repeat teen births, inter-pregnancy intervals, marital status, prenatal care, smoking, WIC participation, unintended pregnancy, post-partum depression, and physical abuse.
-
Pregnancies Among Teens
- Pregnancy rates, pregnancy outcomes, and induced abortion rates.
-
Birth Outcomes Among Teens
- Low birth weight births, preterm births, infant mortality rates, principal payment source for delivery, and hospital charges.
-
Sexual Activity Among Teens
- Sexual intercourse, contraceptive use, and physical violence and sexual intercourse.
Strategy 1.3: Examine attitudes, perceptions, and barriers toward contraception use of target population.
The Family Health Branch contracted with Dr. Alex Marshall, Assistant Professor in the Department of Health Behavior and Health Education at the University of Arkansas for Medical Science’s College of Public Health, to conduct a series of focus groups. Dr. Marshall organized groups of teens and parents of teens in each of the state’s five public health regions in the summer 2018. The groups discussed attitudes toward contraception use and also provided feedback on the Path to a Healthy Relationship pamphlet developed by the agency’s Teen Pregnancy Prevention workgroup.
Strategy 1.4: Identify and build relationships with community partners to provide social activities that promote teen pregnancy prevention.
The Family Health Branch Chief serves as Co-Lead of the Natural Wonders Partnership Council’s Reproductive Health workgroup (https://www.archildrens.org/media/file/82089%20Natural%20Wonders%20Action%20Plan.pdf). In this capacity, the Branch Chief is able to build and maintain partnerships with stakeholders who have an interest in teen pregnancy prevention. The rationale behind the workgroup is:
Adolescent reproductive health includes an opportunity for male and female youth to achieve overall wellbeing in matters relating to their reproductive system and their roles and actions relating to their human sexual development. Arkansas has the highest teen birth rate in the nation (emphasis added), and youth in the state experience other reproductive health risk factors that could be mitigated through education and improved access to comprehensive health care services for adolescents.
~ Natural Wonders Action Plan
The workgroup collects and reviews data on eight measures to inform decision making and track progress toward improved health outcomes for children (Table 1).
Table 1
Arkansas’s Reproductive Health Measure |
Baseline |
Teen birth rate for age groups (15-17 and 18-19) per 1,000 births |
16.1 / 75.3 |
2nd teen births for age groups (15-17 and 18-19) per 1,000 births |
TBD |
Percentage of Chlamydia infections that affect 15-24 year olds |
72% |
Percent of 12th graders who have had sexual intercourse |
65% |
Percent of adolescents ages 10-18 on Medicaid/ARKids First A who should have received at least one screening and who actually received a screening (Participant Ratio) |
32% |
Low birth weight babies |
8.9% |
Teen births per 1,000 |
40% |
Children in single-parent families |
39% |
Source: Natural Wonders Action Plan 2017-2019 |
|
Other Programmatic Activities Related to Sexual Health of Adolescents
The Arkansas teen birth rate remains higher than the national average. In 2017, Arkansas had the highest teen birth rate in the nation with a rate of 32.8 per 1,000 live births compared to the national rate of 22.3 per 1,000 live births. Arkansas has a very high rate of unwed teen births, which is driven by the rate for 18-19 year olds Forty-four percent of teen mothers in the state report their pregnancy was unintended and 18% were repeat births (Arkansas Health Statistics Branch, 2017 provisional data).
Family Planning
Arkansas will continue to focus on increasing the use of contraceptives and reducing sexual activity among teens. Sexual health activities and services for Arkansas’s adolescents are provided by the ADH’s Women’s Health and Child and Adolescent Health Sections. The Women’s Health Section provides reproductive care and education on birth spacing to all women. Teens receive high priority appointments when requesting contraceptives at local health units statewide. The current Family Planning Annual Report shows 20% of family planning users are teens age 19 and under.
Sexual Risk Avoidance Education
The ADH continues to administer the Social Security Act 510, Sexual Risk Avoidance Education activities. Sexual Risk Avoidance Education targets youth ages 10-19 years of age and provides education focused on normalizing the optimal health behavior of avoiding non-marital sexual activity. The program teach youth the benefits of personal responsibility, self-regulation, goal setting, healthy decision making, with a focus on the future and the prevention of risky behaviors such as underage drinking and illicit drug use.
Personal Responsibility Education Program
The ADH continues to administer the Personal Responsibility Education Program (PREP). The PREP program targets youth 10-19 years of age who are homeless, in foster care and juvenile justice centers, and live in rural areas or in schools in geographic areas with high teen birth rates. The PREP program educates young people on both abstinence and contraception to prevent pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections. In addition, the PREP program prepares young people for healthy relationships, healthy attitudes and values, self-sufficiency and independent living skills, healthy life skills, and education and employment preparation skills.
Workgroups
The Family Health Branch’s staff continue to participate in the agency’s Teen Pregnancy Prevention workgroup. The workgroup develops strategies to provide education and services for families, faith leaders, and health care providers to reduce the number of unplanned pregnancies. Additionally, the Family Health Branch Chief serves as the co-facilitator of the Natural Wonders Reproductive Health workgroup, a statewide collaborative effort to educate the public about the issue of teen births. The Branch Chief is also a founding member of the Arkansas Campaign to Prevent Unplanned Pregnancy.
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