The Role of Community Health Workers in Preventing Adolescent Repeat Pregnancies and Births

© 2016 The Society for Adolescent Health and Medicine Intervention by community health workers (CHWs) is believed to prevent repeated childbearing among teenagers. This review investigated the effectiveness of CHWs in reducing repeated pregnancies and births among adolescents aged <20 years,...

Full description

Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Maravilla, J., Betts, K., Abajobir, A., Couto e Cruz, C., Alati, Rosa
Format: Journal Article
Published: Elsevier 2016
Online Access:http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/73119
_version_ 1848762928562438144
author Maravilla, J.
Betts, K.
Abajobir, A.
Couto e Cruz, C.
Alati, Rosa
author_facet Maravilla, J.
Betts, K.
Abajobir, A.
Couto e Cruz, C.
Alati, Rosa
author_sort Maravilla, J.
building Curtin Institutional Repository
collection Online Access
description © 2016 The Society for Adolescent Health and Medicine Intervention by community health workers (CHWs) is believed to prevent repeated childbearing among teenagers. This review investigated the effectiveness of CHWs in reducing repeated pregnancies and births among adolescents aged <20 years, 2 years after the delivery of their first child. Through electronic database and hand searching, experimental and/or observational studies were screened with their results undergoing systematic review and meta-analyses. Subgroup analyses were performed to further assess how study characteristics affected the pooled estimates and heterogeneity. A total of 11 eligible articles, from January 1980 to May 2015, were included. Seven studies evaluated repeated births and eight measured repeated pregnancies. Studies showed relevant disparities in terms of selected methodological aspects and program characteristics. Although most studies (n = 9) were either of “strong” or of “moderate” quality, only two of five finding a significant reduction exhibited a high level of quality as the other three failed to adjust results for confounders. Random effects modeling revealed an overall 30% decrease in repeated adolescent births (odds ratio =.70, confidence interval =.49–.99) among CHW-visited areas relative to nonvisited sites. On the other hand, no significant association was detected in terms of repeated pregnancies (odds ratio =.96, confidence interval =.70–1.28).
first_indexed 2025-11-14T10:55:22Z
format Journal Article
id curtin-20.500.11937-73119
institution Curtin University Malaysia
institution_category Local University
last_indexed 2025-11-14T10:55:22Z
publishDate 2016
publisher Elsevier
recordtype eprints
repository_type Digital Repository
spelling curtin-20.500.11937-731192018-12-13T09:35:13Z The Role of Community Health Workers in Preventing Adolescent Repeat Pregnancies and Births Maravilla, J. Betts, K. Abajobir, A. Couto e Cruz, C. Alati, Rosa © 2016 The Society for Adolescent Health and Medicine Intervention by community health workers (CHWs) is believed to prevent repeated childbearing among teenagers. This review investigated the effectiveness of CHWs in reducing repeated pregnancies and births among adolescents aged <20 years, 2 years after the delivery of their first child. Through electronic database and hand searching, experimental and/or observational studies were screened with their results undergoing systematic review and meta-analyses. Subgroup analyses were performed to further assess how study characteristics affected the pooled estimates and heterogeneity. A total of 11 eligible articles, from January 1980 to May 2015, were included. Seven studies evaluated repeated births and eight measured repeated pregnancies. Studies showed relevant disparities in terms of selected methodological aspects and program characteristics. Although most studies (n = 9) were either of “strong” or of “moderate” quality, only two of five finding a significant reduction exhibited a high level of quality as the other three failed to adjust results for confounders. Random effects modeling revealed an overall 30% decrease in repeated adolescent births (odds ratio =.70, confidence interval =.49–.99) among CHW-visited areas relative to nonvisited sites. On the other hand, no significant association was detected in terms of repeated pregnancies (odds ratio =.96, confidence interval =.70–1.28). 2016 Journal Article http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/73119 10.1016/j.jadohealth.2016.05.011 Elsevier restricted
spellingShingle Maravilla, J.
Betts, K.
Abajobir, A.
Couto e Cruz, C.
Alati, Rosa
The Role of Community Health Workers in Preventing Adolescent Repeat Pregnancies and Births
title The Role of Community Health Workers in Preventing Adolescent Repeat Pregnancies and Births
title_full The Role of Community Health Workers in Preventing Adolescent Repeat Pregnancies and Births
title_fullStr The Role of Community Health Workers in Preventing Adolescent Repeat Pregnancies and Births
title_full_unstemmed The Role of Community Health Workers in Preventing Adolescent Repeat Pregnancies and Births
title_short The Role of Community Health Workers in Preventing Adolescent Repeat Pregnancies and Births
title_sort role of community health workers in preventing adolescent repeat pregnancies and births
url http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/73119