: This proposal is in response to RFA-HS-05-011 """"""""Small Research Grants for Primary Care-Based Research Networks (PBRNs)."""""""" We propose to build the capacity of a newly emerging network of adolescent health care professionals and adolescent health researchers (The North Carolina Adolescent Research Consortium for Health, or NC ARCH) by conducting pilot research to inform future R01 grant applications. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services' Healthy People 2010 initiative has identified 21 Critical Health Objectives for Adolescents and Young Adults. Acknowledging the large gap between the potential contributions of clinical preventive services to adolescent health - and the actual delivery/receipt of these health services -- one proposed strategy to achieve these Objectives is to increase adolescents' access to health care services, incorporate systematic health promotion and prevention activities into health care visits, and create working partnerships among adolescent health care professionals (HCPs) and families. Our overriding hypotheses are that parents can be mobilized to play a very active and influential role in increasing adolescents' access to and receipt of high-quality healthcare services, and that parents can be engaged into developmental-appropriate parent-HCP alliances to effectively improve adolescent health in many of the arenas targeted in Health 2010 Objectives. We propose to conduct focus groups with parents of adolescents to increase our understanding of perceptions of adolescent health, the amount of discordance between perceptions of """"""""ideal"""""""" and """"""""actual"""""""" adolescent health during early, middle, and late adolescence, and perceived roles of parents and HCPs in addressing areas of discordance. Health content areas will include general health, obesity prevention, detection of asymptomatic sexually transmitted infections, and prevention of alcohol related injuries. We also propose to explore study methods of increasing collaboration between parents and health care professionals with the goal of improving adolescent health care and health. Results of pilot research will inform the development of R01 proposals. The long-range goals of this work will be increasing proportions of adolescents who receive annual health care visits, assessment of BMI and obesity-prevention counseling, assessment of tobacco and alcohol use and avoidance/cessation counseling, assessment of risk for sexually transmitted infections and risk-reduction counseling, and chlamydia screening if sexually experienced. ? ? ?
| Ford, Carol A; Davenport, Amy F; Meier, Andrea et al. (2011) Partnerships between parents and health care professionals to improve adolescent health. J Adolesc Health 49:53-7 |
| Ford, Carol A; Davenport, Amy F; Meier, Andrea et al. (2009) Parents and health care professionals working together to improve adolescent health: the perspectives of parents. J Adolesc Health 44:191-4 |
