Dr. Wilhelmina A. Leigh, senior research associate at the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, conducted the following two workshops:

<        “Estimating Costs to (or Expenditures by) State Governments (Part I) … As A Consequence of Teen Pregnancy”

<        “Estimating Costs to (or Expenditures by) State Governments (Part II) … To Prevent Teen Pregnancy” 

The purpose of the workshops was to explain how to produce single-year estimates of, respectively, the costs incurred by a state as a consequence of teen pregnancy, and the costs incurred by a state to prevent teen pregnancy.  In these analyses, single-year cost estimates reflect the costs incurred by a state government (mainly program costs) in a single year to either support all families begun as the result of a birth to a teen (i.e., consequences), or to prevent pregnancy among teens (i.e., prevention).  Single-year cost estimates generated for Colorado in the early years of the 21^st century were described in detail during the workshop sessions.

The handouts distributed at these workshops are posted here.  They include: the PowerPoint presentations (including worksheets), enlargements of selected worksheet pages, detailed notes for the worksheets, and sources for underlying data. The PowerPoint presentations walk the user through steps for estimating the single-year cost of teen pregnancy and of teen pregnancy prevention.  The detailed notes explain the computations on the worksheets.  Interested users can use these tools to calculate similar estimates for their jurisdictions. 

Lewis A. Leavitt, MD, is Professor of Pediatrics at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine as well as Coordinator of the Social and Affective Processes Research Unit and Medical Director of the Waisman Center on Human Development and Mental Retardation at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. As a clinician evaluating young children who have developmental disabilities, Dr. Leavitt has been active in efforts to translate research into clinical practice. He has worked extensively with parent groups for public education regarding develop-mental disability issues. At the Waisman Center, Dr. Leavitt directs an interdisci-plinary training program for pre- and postdoctoral physicians, nurses and allied health professionals working in the field of developmental disabilities. Currently, his research efforts include studying coping mechanisms used by parents who have adolescents and adults with autism.

Leavitt Presentation

David Olds, PhD, is Professor of Pediatrics, Psychiatry, and Preventive Medicine at the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center, where he directs the Prevention Research Center for Family and Child Health. He has devoted his career to investigating methods of preventing health and developmental problems in children and parents from low-income families. In recent years, Dr. Olds has begun helping new communities develop the Nurse-Family Partnership program outside of research contexts, giving emphasis to ensuring quality implementation with fidelity to the model tested in the scientifically controlled studies. At this time, the Nurse-Family Partnership, as the program is now called, has been replicated in 21 states and over 250 counties throughout the United States.

Olds Presentation