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The Components Study of REAL Essentials (REA) is a descriptive implementation and outcome study. This study aims to identify the components that matter most for promoting positive health behaviors and outcomes among adolescents. The study will examine a variety of components to determine which are most influential in predicting participant outcomes. In addition, the study will measure youth engagement in programming from various perspectives and examine the role of engagement as an intermediary factor to achieving youth outcomes.
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Sites participating in the study used the REA relationship education curriculum, a popular program among federal Teen Pregnancy Prevention (TPP) and Sexual Risk Avoidance Education (SRAE) grantees. The program is intentionally flexible, and each participating school selected a subset of the 87available lessons to meet the needs of the population it serves; the selected lessons comprised the site-specific scope and implementation sequence. Schools offered different lessons and total dosage, and facilitators had various levels of experience with the curriculum, and various backgrounds and facilitation quality. The variation in program delivery, coupled with diverse participant backgrounds, created different REA experiences for participating youth. The study capitalized on this variation to examine which program components were most predictive of variation in participant outcomes.
The study enrolled 1,301 youth across 27 schools in Spring 2022 and Fall 2022. The study collected youth outcome surveys at baseline and at program exit. The immediate follow-up survey enabled the study to explore how variation in components influences outcomes proximal to the REA content, which largely included antecedents to sexual behavior and optimal health. A six-month follow-up survey enabled the study to explore how program components influenced distal behavioral and optimal health outcomes.
In addition to the outcome data, the study collected extensive implementation data. Program facilitators completed logs after delivering each class to enable the study to determine whether facilitators delivered program content and activities, whether they adapted lessons, and the extent to which youth appeared engaged in the lesson. Facilitators also documented attendance at each class session to provide detailed dosage data for youth. Study staff independently observed a subset of classes and REA trainings and interviewed and hold focus groups with facilitators and youth.
The study measured youth engagement through brief exit tickets with youth (surveys administered after each class); facilitators' reports of perceived engagement; independent in-person observations; and in a small number of sites, video recordings of youth faces coded with artificial intelligence to determine how strongly the measures of youth engagement correlate with each other and which was most predictive of youth outcomes.
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1,301 participants in 1 patient group
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Data sourced from clinicaltrials.gov
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