Strategies for Identifying Core Components of Programs: an Exploratory Descriptive Component Case Study of a Teen Pregnancy Prevention Program

TL;DR

This paper explores methods to identify key parts of a teen pregnancy prevention program that lead to better outcomes.

Contribution

The paper introduces strategies for defining and evaluating program components to improve prevention effectiveness.

Findings

Strategies for identifying core program components are summarized with a teen pregnancy prevention case study.

Best practices for measuring and analyzing program components are provided for better evaluation design.

The paper guides the prevention field toward more effective research on program effectiveness.

Abstract

Studies of program components (i.e., the ingredients that make up programs) have risen from obscurity to join mainstream program evaluation approaches over the last two decades. Researchers and policymakers are interested in leveraging information about the effectiveness of program components to better address the needs of programs’ intended populations and reduce disparities in outcomes. Identifying which components are responsible for improving outcomes can inform evaluation design, measurement, and the state of the evidence as well as program development, adaptation, fidelity, and scale-up. This paper summarizes strategies for conducting components research, and anchors those emerging best practices in a components case study of a teen pregnancy prevention program. It offers applied guidance on ways to define and operationalize components, and best practices in measurement and analysis that have emerged from this work. This paper will help guide the prevention field toward conducting more and better research that yields consensus about which components are most important for program effectiveness.

The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s11121-026-01881-8.

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