A 'Prevention Architecture' for the Second Decade
Executive Summary
The Office of the Assistant Secretary for Health is responsible for developing and implementing public health policies that ensure the health of all Americans.
Hundreds of millions of dollars are spent in programs that separately address youth smoking, teen pregnancy prevention, drug abuse prevention and treatment, obesity prevention, healthy lunch programs, among others. The problem is that, unlike the multitude of integrated preventions and programs available for raising newborns, there are no similar guidelines that assist parents, communities, and/or adolescents through comprehensive, cross-cutting, and foundational, preventative health and wellness methods.
The Innovation: The team interacted deeply with community health leaders to understand the need for programs that comprehensively prevent unhealthy behavior in adolescents. It has proposed and built the first iteration of a guide that strives to simplify the number and complexity of steps needed to proactively develop programs for a community’s adolescent population.
The team has received the support of OASH leadership to continue on its path towards piloting the project in a limited number of communities. The project has been further sponsored by leadership with its commitment of evaluation funds to be used to measure the impact of the pilot.
A project supported by the: HHS Ignite Accelerator
Team Members
Patrick O’Carroll (Project Lead), HHS Seattle Region
Evelyn M. Kappeler, HHS Office of Adolescent Health
Lewissa Swanson, HHS Seattle Region
Renee Bouvion, HHS Seattle Region
Leslie Walker, Seattle Children’s Hospital
Alia Fry, HHS Seattle Region
Milestones
May 2014: Project selected into the HHS Ignite Accelerator
June 2014: Time in the Accelerator began
September 2014: Time in the Accelerator ended
Project Sponsor
Wanda Jones, HHS Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for Health
