Project Summary
The Adolescent Health Initiative (AHI) at Michigan Medicine’s annual Conference on Adolescent Health: Translating Research into Practice addresses the needs of healthcare providers and researchers through meaningful stakeholder involvement. The conference engages an international audience of healthcare providers and health professionals along with youth collaborators from local and national organizations in opportunities to influence future research, strengthen provider practice, and improve the delivery of adolescent-centered health care.
This project seeks to address the underrepresentation of adolescents in the dissemination of research and bring this stakeholder group into a more active and meaningful role as partners in professional conferences and research dissemination.
The 2018 project objectives are as follows:
- Disseminate adolescent patient-centered outcomes research to a large audience of multidisciplinary health providers on topics including primary care, mental health, sexual health, and youth engagement
- Deliver in-person and live virtual workshops on how to best engage youth in conferences and disseminating patient-centered outcomes research
- Model effective youth-adult partnerships through cofacilitated conference workshops and conference engagement
- Deliver best practice guides and an e-learning module on youth engagement as a tool for disseminating patient-centered outcomes research
Developed with meaningful adolescent engagement, the Conference on Adolescent Health includes skill-building workshops that aim to improve specific clinical practices, breakout and plenary sessions focused on topics relevant to patient-centered care, and poster-viewing sessions to disseminate high-integrity professional and student research from across the country. The 2018 and 2019 conferences will be complemented by a variety of enduring materials on youth-adult partnerships that will include virtual workshops, an e-learning module, and best practice guides to foster ongoing learning, professional development, and networking opportunities throughout the year.
Project outcomes include the following:
- Reach a large, multidisciplinary audience of adolescent health providers, researchers, and stakeholders
- Execute a professional conference disseminating high-integrity information and innovative patient-centered research to a broad audience
- Provide meaningful opportunities for youth collaboration in conference sessions, presentations, and exhibitor opportunities
- Influence conference attendees’ future research and practice in adolescent health care
Stakeholders from AHI’s steering and conference planning committees are engaged in the conference from beginning to end through planning, recruiting speakers, reviewing research poster abstract submissions, coaching and coordinating youth-adult facilitation teams, designing evaluation tools, reviewing evaluation data, and disseminating results. A particular emphasis is placed on adolescent stakeholders. AHI’s Teen Advisory Council will be involved in integrating the youth voice by selecting youth cofacilitators from local organizations for conference breakout sessions, executing their own breakout session with AHI, reviewing poster abstracts, presenting poster awards, reviewing evaluation responses, and planning and presenting two subsequent live virtual workshops.
Project collaborators include Michigan Medicine, the Institute for Patient- and Family-Centered Care, the Michigan Regional Chapter of the Society for Adolescent Health and Medicine (MI-SAHM), AHI’s Teen Advisory Council, and AHI’s steering and conference planning committees.