Funded Projects

Training Teachers, Teaching Teens

Project Year

2023

City & State

New York, New York

Program Name

CATCH Implementation

Topic

Adolescent Health

Program Description

The Problem: Adolescents in the Bronx, New York are known to be at risk for multiple adverse health effects such as obesity, high-risk sexual behaviors, substance use, and mental health issues. - Obesity: According to the 2021 Youth Risk Behavior Survey (YRBS), the Bronx has the highest obesity rate among adolescents in the five boroughs of New York. Latinx students are 97% more overweight than their white peers, while Black students are 65% more overweight. Long-term prospective studies show that persistent obesity is associated with an increased risk of diabetes and hypertension in young adults. - High-Risk Sexual Behaviors: Of all New York City’s boroughs, the Bronx has the highest rate of sexually transmitted infections. The 2021 YRBS found that 40% of adolescents in the Bronx hadn’t used a condom the last time they had sex. The rate of chlamydia infections per 100,000 people in the Bronx is nearly double the rate in other boroughs. Teen pregnancy and birth rates in the Bronx have been consistently higher than those in New York City. - Substance Use: New York is ranked one of the top ten states for illicit drug dependence among teenagers and young adults. A study conducted by the New York State Department of Health revealed a total of 39,216 unintentional drug poisoning cases in 2012, with 11,773 of the cases occurring alone in the borough of Bronx; 12% of total drug-related hospitalizations in New York were recorded in those aged 15-24 years. - Mental Health: According to the 2021 New York City YRBS, 30.4% of adolescents self-reported at least one two-week period of persistent sadness or hopelessness in the past year that disrupted some usual activities. In the Bronx, the percentage of adolescents attempting suicide has increased by 62% since 2003. Primary Setting: School-based health education helps adolescents acquire functional health knowledge, and strengthens attitudes, beliefs, and practice skills needed to adopt and maintain healthy behaviors throughout their lives. Project Goal: Our long-term goal is to increase middle and high school student's knowledge and understanding of health and nutrition, sexual and reproductive health, substance use, and mental health. In our initial year, we will focus primarily on middle school eighth-grade students. These health topics align with New York City's health education requirement for grades 6 - 12. Our secondary goal is to expose college students to adolescent-specific topics and train them to serve as health educators for middle and high school students. The innovative aspect of this project is that we are implementing a train-the-trainer approach with college students from the community health leaders program, who will then teach middle school students. Studies have shown that students respond and learn better from their youth peers especially peers who are of a similar demographic. Intervention: We aim to implement a 4-week in-person workshop series focused on the four domains of health and nutrition, sexual and reproductive health, substance youth, and mental health. This workshop series will take place in middle and high schools in the Bronx. Each workshop will be 45 minutes long. Adolescent medicine fellows from the Children's Hospital at Montefiore will coordinate these workshops and serve as mentors and train college students during their required Advocacy Elective. Anticipated Outcome: We will be collecting pre and post-evaluation surveys. We hypothesize that after workshop sessions, students will demonstrate increased knowledge of the four domains of health and nutrition, sexual and reproductive health, substance youth, and mental health. We anticipate that the college students who serve as health educators will experience gains in leadership and professional development. Number of Children Affected: We plan to teach five eighth-grade classes with a total of approximately 150 students.

Project Goal

To increase middle school eighth-grade student's knowledge and understanding of health and nutrition, sexual and reproductive health, substance use, and mental health and assess barriers to health education at PS/MS95

Project Objective 1

Conduct four one-hour workshop sessions for each eighth-grade class at PS/MS95 from March - April 2024

Project Objective 2

Conduct 30-minute interviews with teachers, school leadership, students and parents to assess barriers to health education from September - May 2024

Project Objective 3

Train at least ten college students from the Community Health Leaders program to serve as health educators for the workshop series from September - February 2024

AAP District

District II

Institutional Name

The Children's Hospital at Montefiore

Contact 1

Tatiana Ndjatou