UT Health San Antonio’s Teen Health program will receive a $9.86 million grant over the next five years from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to bolster teen pregnancy prevention programs, officials announced Thursday.
Teen birth rates in the 38 mostly rural counties in South Texas that UT Health serves can be up to four times higher than the national average.
The grant funding will be used to establish collaborative programs in those counties with school districts, clinics, houses of worship, detention centers and other community-based organizations — especially in areas where education and health care access are lacking.
These programs, which will be developed with local partners to tailor them to a community’s specific needs, will also take aim at generational poverty, said Jennifer Todd, project manager of UT Teen Health.
A lot of the programming has to do with helping children and teens set life goals, including and beyond parenthood.
“If you start early and talk often with your children, they’re able to have these goals in mind,” Todd said.
Much of the research on what works has already been done, she added, methods that include better parent-child communication, increased contraceptive use and a decreased number of sexual partners.
The new grant will bolster UT Teen Health’s work in Bexar County — which has seen a 73% decrease in teen birth rates since 2010, when the program first received a similar grant — and replicate that work in the surrounding rural counties in South Texas, Todd said.
“We’re hoping that by leveraging all the services within these communities and counties, we’ll be able to see similar success in advancing adolescent health equity,” she said.
According to the San Antonio Metropolitan Health District’s 2020 teen birth report, San Antonio’s teen birth rate nearly matched the state of Texas birth rate of 22.4 births per 1,000 female population aged 15-19. However, Texas continues to rank within the top 10 highest teen birth rates. The national teen birth rate is 15.4 births per 1,000 females in that age demographic.
The funding allocation announced Thursday is part of a $68.5 million Health and Human Services grant for teen pregnancy prevention programs to 53 organizations in 29 states and Puerto Rico.
“We are really excited about this funding, because it’s focusing on Bexar County and our South Texas communities that really don’t get a lot of attention or funding,” Todd said.
While many funding opportunities and partners across the region have already been identified, Todd asked for anyone interested in partnering with UT Health on their efforts in those 38 counties to reach out.
