Let Me Help You Find Bliss

Research has shown that when young people have their basic needs met and feel positive about their futures, they are less likely to engage in risky behaviors. The Carrera Adolescent Pregnancy Prevention Program has reduced pregnancy rates by 40 percent in New York by meeting teens educational, emotional, and employment needs.

Uganda has one of the highest rates of teen pregnancy in Africa, but a unique mobile health clinic is helping to reduce the rates of conception. Marie Stopes’ tuk tuks brings health care, sexual education and contraceptives to women in poor communities.

St. Louis has one of the highest rates of STDs and HIV in the state, but the city's Health Department has implemented a creative method for providing safe sex education and testing. The staff at salons and barber shops - who are trusted community members and serve to provide all manner of relevant information to their patrons - leverage key health resources to those populations that need them most.

Reproductive Health Uganda (RHU) Clinic is taking a youth centered approach towards teaching reproductive health. Their methods, which include having youth days, hiring youth peer counselors, and providing private rooms for youth to discuss their sexual health, allow them to reach teenagers. “As a result, their uptake of contraception has increased.”

A Colorado bike builder creates adapted cycles for athletes who otherwise rely on wheelchairs for mobility. The cycles allow adventurous people with disabilities to ride trails and access difficult terrain.

Delaware has a new statewide program to ask women of childbearing age if they are planning on getting pregnant in the next year during a primary care visit and to discuss birth control options if the answer is no. The goal of these discussions is to decrease the amount of unintended pregnancies and as a result increase women’s body autonomy and decrease medical spending.

Uganda’s education ministry requires all schools to have incinerators to burn used sanitary pads. Lack of funding limits schools’ ability to comply. Even when incinerators exist, girls don’t necessarily use them. Educating both girls and boys about menstruation reduces stigma and increases the likelihood that girls feel comfortable enough to collect pads instead of throwing them in pit latrines.

Dementia units and long-term care homes for the elderly are often desolate and lonely places, with harried workers attempting to meet the needs of their patients while also meeting government-set metrics of success. For families and individuals, it can be difficult to imagine a better way. However, a pilot program in Canada called the Butterfly room is showing that dedicated efforts to making long-term care homes a vibrant and loving place for someone's last days has positive impacts for everyone - and is worth a government investment do right across the country.

The San Antonio Independent School District developed an app to help combat the Covid-slide among its students, including English Language Learning students. The app tracks interactions, class attendance, and completed assignments, but also correspondence and in-person interactions. Administrators took the data collected on its close to 50,000 students and developed strategies to direct special attention or make contact with students with decreased engagement. Out of 48,000 students, only 142 didn't have a contact log.

Companies like Sanofi are beginning to partner with organizations like Bright Horizons to offer eldercare benefits to employees, like in-home adult care services. The benefit allows Bright Horizons to dispatch care workers to a person’s home and the company administering the benefit subsidizes the majority of the cost. Providing eldercare benefits reduces the burden on employees, allowing them to be more present at work. Since the pandemic, Sanofi has seen a 20% increase in the number of employees registering for the eldercare benefit program.