Since its report to the Board in February 2003, the Adolescent Health Committee has focused on: (1) developing an adolescent health-focused policy statement, (2) organizing a national teleconference, (3) preparing for a Preventive Medicine Coalition on Adolescent Health meeting, and (4) contributing articles to ACPM’s quarterly newsletter.

In addition, the Committee conducted a highly-successful adolescent health session at Preventive Medicine 2003 in San Diego. The results are provided in this report.

The Adolescent Health Committee is responsible for producing at least one policy statement each year aimed at preventive medicine and public health professionals that discusses interventions (clinical, community-based, or legislative and regulatory interventions) to help achieve one or more of the Healthy People 2010 critical objectives for adolescents. In recent months the committee guided the development of, "The Scope of Reproductive Health Care Benefits for Adolescents under the State Children's Health Insurance Program: An ACPM Position Statement." The statement recommends benefit coverage guidelines for state SCHIP programs to consider in order to ensure adolescents’ access to comprehensive, coordinated and high-quality reproductive health services. The statement currently is in a second round of review by the committee and should be available in final form later this year.

ACPM will convene one adolescent health educational program via teleconference each year. The Adolescent Health Committee has selected emergency contraception for adolescents as the focus topic for the first national teleconference. Suggested issues related to this topic include whether or not pharmacists should be permitted to prescribe emergency contraception on their own and what policies or guidance are in the best interest of adolescents’ health status. The teleconference is tentatively scheduled for September 2003. ACPM currently is in the process of identifying speakers, organizing teleconference logistics, and planning marketing strategies.

The College has formed a Preventive Medicine Coalition on Adolescent Health (PMCAH). The Coalition is a broad mix of public health, medical, clinical, and consumer organizations focused on social, behavioral, and environmental influences on adolescent health. ACPM hosted the Coalition’s first in-person meeting on June 23, 2003 in Washington, DC. Committee Chair David Katz also chairs the PMCAH. During the meeting, the Coalition identified a number of key functions it could play, including networking and information sharing, amplifying adolescent health issues within the member organizations, analysis and dissemination of best practices, joint policy development and advocacy, and providing access to the collective expertise and person-power of the coalition members’ constituencies. ACPM will create a listserv for Coalition communications and circulate a list of action steps for prioritization by the coalition.

ACPM launched its Adolescent Health section in the spring 2003 issue of ACPM News, which will be a regular feature of the newsletter. The inaugural section highlighted the work of the Adolescent Health Committee and included two articles on the first-year focus area, adolescent sexuality. The articles addressed the role of adult supervision and its relationship to youth independence and adolescents’ level of sexual activity. Committee members David Katz and Deborah Cohen contributed articles to the issue.

ACPM, under the guidance of its Adolescent Health Committee, planned and held a session devoted to adolescent health during Preventive Medicine 2003, in San Diego, CA. The session, titled "Adolescent Sexual Health: New Preventive Strategies," offered 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 included ACPM members David Katz, Deborah Cohen, and Kees Rietmeijer, as well as Susan Wang from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The educational session was one of the most popular concurrent sessions at Preventive Medicine 2003, as 70 attendees filled the room. The participant evaluations were extremely positive, with a 92 percent favorable response across all evaluation categories. Ninety-three percent of respondents agreed or strongly agreed that the session met its learning objectives, and 98 percent agreed or strongly agreed the information learned would be useful in their current work