4Real Health (formerly the Orleans Teen Pregnancy Prevention Project) began in 2010 with funding from the Office of Adolescent Health in the US Department of Health and Human Services. 4Real Health was a collaborative project facilitated by LPHI to address four pillars of adolescent health—pregnancy prevention, HIV prevention, healthy eating, and physical activity—through community- and clinic-based health education. Louisiana consistently ranks among the states with the highest adolescent sexual and reproductive health morbidity in the country. 4Real Health sought to address the gaps in teen pregnancy prevention and sex education that exist in Orleans Parish. LPHI implemented and evaluated two teen pregnancy prevention evidence-based interventions: Becoming a Responsible Teen (BART) and Safer Sex Intervention (SSI), reaching a total of 850 youth over three years.
BART is a community-based sex education program that aims to prevent HIV by helping teens learn to clarify their own values about sexual decisions and pressures, as well as practice skills to reduce sexual risk taking. The program served African-American New Orleans youth ages 14-18. Although the focus of BART is HIV/AIDS prevention, the curriculum includes topics and activities relevant to pregnancy prevention, and stresses abstinence as the most effective behavior.
SSI is a clinic-based intervention intended to reduce the incidence of sexually transmitted infections (STI) and improve condom use among high-risk female adolescents. SSI was delivered individually to sexually active young women ages 14-19 in Orleans Parish at the time of receiving STI services, when the participant is most likely to be contemplating her diagnosis relative to her sexual risk behaviors.