Health Resource Center Program

About The Health Resource Center Program:

Health Resource Centers provide private, confidential, and easily-accessible locations where youth can receive high-quality sexual and reproductive health counseling, education, and/or services from a trained professional. Health Resource Centers are based within schools or existing community sites.

The goals of the Health Resource Center Program are:

• To increase the number of high school age youth in high-need counties with access to quality sexual and reproductive health education and counseling to better inform their health decisions.
• To increase the number of high school age youth in high-need counties with access to tools to decrease risk of unintended pregnancy, HIV and STDs.

Health Resource Centers serve youth by:

• Encouraging critical thinking around sexual activity
• Promoting healthy relationships and behaviors regarding human sexuality
• Promoting safer sexual behavior, including access to and correct use of condoms and other safer sex tools
• Reducing unintended pregnancies and STD/HIV infection by providing referrals for reproductive healthcare services, contraception, and STD/HIV testing

Health Resource Center Impact:

This service matters.  Since 1991, the national teen pregnancy rate has declined by 55%.  However, pockets of the country still have high rates of unintended pregnancy, and STD rates remain high nationally.  Philadelphia and several other counties in Pennsylvania are among those pockets, with alarming rates of chlamydia that in many cases coincide with high rates of unintended pregnancy and other STDs among youth.   Despite this, zip codes in Philadelphia with access to Health Resource Centers reported average decreases in teen birth and STD rates that outpace the city, state, and country overall.