Project Unite | Indiana University Rural Conference 2020

Indiana has the 39th highest teen birthrate in the United States and the teen birthrate in rural communities typically exceeds the State's rate. Project UNITE (Uncovering New Initiatives for Teen Empowerment) assists rural Indiana communities in developing and implementing effective interventions aimed at preventing teen pregnancy and supporting parenting teens. A critical step in Project UNITE's partnership-based approach is understanding community readiness and contexts related to teen pregnancy and parenthood. In this presentation we will describe the processes we have used, in partnership with community coalitions, to learn about how two rural communities perceive teen pregnancy and parenthood.

Presenters: Susan Kavaya, Dechen Sangmo, and Michaella Ward, School of Public Health-Bloomington, with project support from Alison Greene, Catherine Sherwood-Laughlin, Lisa Greathouse, Jonathon Beckmeyer, and Paul Levy