Project Summary
Background: Adolescents have unique health care needs that call for innovative, youth-centered, evidence-based educational opportunities for the professionals who serve them. Adolescents are also underrepresented in patient-centered outcomes research (PCOR) and comparative clinical effectiveness research (CER) dissemination, and researchers often do not have experience collaborating with youth, especially virtually. There is much to be done to address past patterns of inequity, adultism, and provider bias, to build a future where youth/adult partnership is the standard for research dissemination.
Proposed Solution to the Problem: The UM Adolescent Health Initiative (AHI) will host an accessible virtual Conference on Adolescent Health in 2023, proposing that all sessions are co-facilitated by youth and adults in a replicable shared-power model.
Objectives: The goals are to disseminate adolescent-focused PCOR/CER to multidisciplinary health professionals, develop and implement tools that empower researchers to partner effectively with diverse youth in virtual environments and best disseminate PCOR/CER, and foster effective youth/adult partnerships (YAP) by promoting innovative strategies for collaborative virtual pre-conference planning and co-facilitated conference sessions.
Activities: AHI will plan the event with collaborators, and the call for abstracts will prioritize PCOR/CER, patient-centered approaches, and historically underrepresented and marginalized voices. AHI and its youth council will co-develop a Youth/Adult Partnership resource suite that all presenters will complete. The keynote speaker will co-facilitate a discussion with youth on evidence-based and emerging strategies in youth-centered research, and a networking reception will provide opportunities for collaboration and fun.
Projected Outcomes and Outputs: The event will disseminate PCOR/CER to over 600 health professionals, modeling effective youth/adult partnerships in 100% of the sessions, with an event satisfaction score of 4.5/5.0. One output that will have longer-term impact will be the Youth/Adult Partnership suite, which will be open-access and promoted through AHI’s networks. Evaluation data will show change in knowledge, attitudes, and intent to change practice. The project will produce a tested, replicable model for virtual collaborative planning and delivery with youth at its center; the collaborative model will be established as a promising practice for patient-centered research dissemination.
Short-term outcomes during the project period include:
The event will disseminate PCOR/CER to over 600 health professionals, modeling effective youth/adult partnerships in 100% of the sessions and centering crucial youth perspectives, with an event satisfaction score of 4.5/5.0. Virtual youth/adult partnership training will be co-developed, tested for presentation planning, and disseminated, strengthening the Conference. Additional training and Twitter chat will increase skills and visibility.
Medium-term outcomes (0-2 years post-project period) include:
Youth and adults report growth and learning from collaboration. The shared power model for youth/adult partnership will be formalized in a guide for virtual collaborative planning and delivery.
Long-term outcomes (3+ years post-project period) include:
AHI’s youth/adult partnership tools (modules and guides) on power sharing and youth/adult partnership will be widely disseminated and utilized, shifting the landscape of youth engagement in PCOR/CER, research dissemination, and professional development in general.
Patient and Stakeholder Engagement Plan: Youth are the primary stakeholders and primary collaborators, actively engaged in speaker selection, co-planning and co-facilitating sessions with researchers, and planning with evaluation data. Conference attendees will be engaged by the well-prepared teams of youth and adult presenters.
Project Collaborators: The stakeholder groups have a voice, directly or indirectly, in the planning, execution, and improvement of the Conference. AHI partners with 12+ youth-serving organizations to plan and present programs, including the PCORI-supported AYA Leadership Research Council. AHI’s Professional Advisory Committee represents the roles of the audience and has a significant voice in event planning and execution. Researchers, presenters, and exhibitors make the Conference rich and educational. Researchers who center youth in their studies are closely aligned with AHI’s mission, and the project team provides a platform for them to share the results of their important work. Drs Tebb and Sleath, among others, will showcase their CER findings at the Conference.