This item has been filed in | News
Print This Post Print This Post

Researcher Awarded $3.3 Million Grant to Reduce Teen Pregnancy through Gaming


1 Star2 Stars3 Stars4 Stars5 Stars (No Ratings Yet)
Loading...Loading...

    Special to UM News

    NORRIS_2014CORAL GABLES, Fla. (October 2, 2014)—The National Institute of Nursing Research has awarded a five-year (2014-2019), $3.3 million grant to an investigator at the School of Nursing and Health Studies to support an innovative program aimed at reducing teen pregnancy and the risk of sexually transmitted infections among Latina adolescents. Professor Anne Norris will utilize “Mighty Girls,” a novel intervention that uses cutting-edge technology to create a highly interactive video game which provides live, realistic simulation of peer pressure. Players talk directly with avatars as they would with their peers, and in this way practice building evidence-based communication skills for resisting peer pressure.

    “U.S. teen pregnancy rates among the overall population have been declining for years but are still high among Latinas,” explains Norris, “and the costs are considerable. Besides the profound and unmeasurable effect of unwanted pregnancy on the physical and emotional health of the teenager and her family, there are quantifiable associated socioeconomic costs. For example, lost tax revenue resulting from decreased maternal educational attainment and productivity has been estimated at $3.2 billion. However, in addition to preventing unwanted pregnancy and reducing socioeconomic costs, Mighty Girls empowers young girls to ‘use their voices to make wise choices.’ What is most exciting about this funding from the National Institute of Nursing Research is the opportunity it provides to make a positive difference in the lives of young Latinas and to use rigorous research methods to demonstrate the value of this difference.”

    Norris and her colleagues tested Mighty Girls in a previous R15 feasibility trial and found the results encouraging. The current study, funded under the NINR’s R01 mechanism, will be conducted with seventh-grade Latinas enrolled in 20 middle schools in Miami-Dade County. The study is a collaborative effort involving Guillermo Prado of the Miller School of Medicine, Eileen Smith of the Institute for Simulation and Training at the University of Central Florida, Miami-Dade County Public Schools, and nationally and internationally renowned investigators in the fields of communication science, public health, and economics.

    Norris and her interdisciplinary team will follow the girls into ninth grade, a period in which risky behaviors typically increase. Half of the schools will be randomly assigned to receive the experimental intervention in addition to standard in-school sex education, while the other half will receive the standard in-school sex education. Mighty Girls’ inclusion of peer-pressure resistance strategies that do not jeopardize friendships makes the program highly acceptable to girls of this age group.

    “It is exciting that with NINR funding we are bringing a promising intervention to one of our community’s most vulnerable populations,” said School of Nursing and Health Studies Dean Nilda (Nena) Peragallo Montano. “The model incorporates Latino values in its techniques. We have found that you have to approach a population you want to help from the framework of its own values, and Mighty Girls does this.”

     

    Comments are closed.

    UM Facebook

    UM Twitter