Since its report to the Board in November 2002, the Adolescent Health Committee has focused on: (1) organizing a Preventive Medicine 2003 session, (2) participating in an AMA-sponsored Educational Forum, (3) developing an adolescent health-focused policy statement, and (4) forming a Preventive Medicine Coalition on Adolescent Health.

The Committee has planned and organized a session on adolescent health for Preventive Medicine 2003. The session, "Adolescent Sexual Health: New Preventive Strategies," will offer the latest information on trends in STDs and sexual behaviors in adolescents; a variety of individual, group, community and environmental/structural interventions; and opportunities and strategies for training and capacity building. Speakers include ACPM members David Katz, Deborah Cohen, Kees Rietmeijer, and also Susan Wang from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

To provide this session to as many people as possible beyond the in-person meeting, ACPM will contract with Digiscript^TM to digitally capture (audio and video) this session. The session and accompanying speaker materials will then be placed on ACPM’s web site so that they can be viewed at no cost.

Adolescent Health Committee member Nancy Sheehan, MD, MPH, was a featured panelist at the American Medical Association’s Educational Forum on Adolescent Obesity, November 14^th in Washington, DC. In her remarks, Dr. Sheehan emphasized adolescent physical activity and nutrition in the college setting. These remarks will be published in AMA’s Educational Forum Proceedings in 2003. Dr. Sheehan is a physician at the University of Connecticut, Student Health Services and has been ACPM’s liaison to AMA’s Adolescent Health Coalition for several years.

ACPM is also a formal member of AMA’s MCHB-funded National Coalition on Adolescent Health and serves on the project’s steering committee.

The Adolescent Health Committee is responsible for producing at least one policy statement related to the special focus topic each year. In recent months the Adolescent Health Committee reviewed, "Sexuality Education in Secondary Schools: Abstinence-only Versus Comprehensive Curricula." This public policy was drafted as part of ACPM's previously ongoing policy development process and this statement was in the internal ACPM peer review phase, when the Adolescent Health Committee was formed. The timing provided an immediate opportunity for the Committee to offer its collective expertise and guidance to the development of ACPM policy. This policy statement will also be circulated through ACPM's Prevention Practice Committee, responsible for developing ACPM position statements. The PPC will provide an additional review, and will formally vote on the statement before it can be submitted to the Board of Regents.

The College is committed to engaging other prominent organizations in ACPM’s Preventive Medicine Coalition on Adolescent Health and recently contacted a broad mix of public health, clinical, and consumer organizations focused on social, behavioral, and environmental influences on adolescent health. The members represent important components of the public health infrastructure and, thus, are well situated to facilitate strengthening the systems that promote the health of adolescents and their families.

The Coalition will have two primary purposes. First, it will serve as a forum for networking and information sharing about adolescent health. Second, Coalition members can play a key role in publicizing among their members upcoming educational events such as teleconferences, and new resources on adolescent health issues such as policy statements. Coalition members will be encouraged to use this network to publicize their own adolescent health initiatives, with special emphasis on ways in which other Coalition members might participate in those activities.

ACPM has invited fourteen (14) organizations to participate with the Preventive Medicine Coalition on Adolescent Health.