Duval County, FL, Public Schools Teen Health Centers

Providing on-site health services helps keep teens healthy

Teens in the United States are less likely than younger children and adults to receive recommended preventive health services. On-site services, such as school-based health centers, mobile testing, and limited service clinics play an important role in keeping teens healthy. Nationwide, 21% of adolescents aged 10–17 years did not have a preventive care visit in the previous 12 months.¹ Less than one-third of providers routinely discuss sensitive sexual health topics at preventive care visits.²

On-site social and health services are important sources of care for students and can include sexual health services to help prevent HIV, STDs, and pregnancy. School leaders in Duval County, Florida, recognized the importance of such services and realized changes were needed in their county to improve their students’ health.

Expanding on-site health and social services

Recognizing the need to address teen health in the county, DCPS established the Jacksonville Partnership for Promoting Health for Emerging Adults as a collaborative youth-focused partnership to deliver a school-based approach to improve the sexual health outcomes of Duval youth.

An essential component involved not only increasing the number of schools providing on-site services, but also expanding the services offered to include sexual health services such as HIV, STD, and pregnancy testing and access to condoms. Once access to these services was established and provided, the collaborative coined the term Teen Health Centers.

Teen Health Centers have the potential to serve thousands of Duval County high school students

To address the continuing need for services—Duval County high school students had the lowest rate of condom use in the state and the county’s STD rate was 59% higher than Florida’s in 2015—the partnership strived to provide access to more students.³

DCPS Teen Health Centers are currently available to nearly 11,500 students enrolled in seven priority schools as part of efforts supported by the Division of Adolescent and School Health at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) through cooperative agreement PS18-1807: Promoting Adolescent Health Through School-Based HIV/STD Prevention.

DCPS continues to leverage their CDC funding to maintain the number of centers providing student access to sexual health services across the district. This includes youth who are at high risk for HIV and other STDs.