Catapult: Global Early Adolescent Study (GEAS)

With support from the David & Lucile Packard Foundation and partnerships with the World Health Organization (WHO), Johns Hopkins University School of Public Health, and research teams around the world, we launched The Catapult Study, the New Orleans site for the Global Early Adolescent Study (GEAS). The GEAS aims to “better understand how gender socialization in early adolescence occurs around the world, and how it shapes health and wellness for individuals and their communities.” As the only North American site, we aim to learn about the relationship and health issues young people face in their communities, how these issues are the same or different from what young people experience in other parts of the world, and what can be done in New Orleans to help adolescents grow up healthy.

 
 

Since its inception in 2018 the Catapult Study has reached 1,259 youth in New Orleans with sexual and reproductive health education programming provided by IWES health educators at various partner schools across New Orleans. Throughout the study students participate in a series of surveys to gauge their experiences with relationships, puberty, healthy behaviors, bullying, violence, mental health and gender attitudes. As a longitudinal study, Catapult participants complete follow-up surveys two and three years after enrollment with special attention given to how young people's experiences may have changed.

Another major component of the GEAS is the National Youth Advisory Board (NYAB). We are one of five GEAS sites awarded funding from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to more meaningfully engage youth beyond their participation in the GEAS study by inviting youth perspectives in service to a national youth advisory board. We created a school-year length youth participatory action research internship for which GEAS participants were invited to apply. Four high school students completed the full internship program. In forming the NYAB internship, our Research and Evaluation division sought to more deeply and meaningfully engage our youth participants, both to ensure that our homegrown Creating a Future Together (CrAFT) curriculum and study approach are relevant and responsive to their unique needs, and also to offer extensive training and capacity building in research and advocacy—all in an effort to review and disseminate GEAS survey findings through our young people’s own participatory action lenses. The NYAB students chose to focus on Mental Health and Bullying, Gender Norms and LGBTQ+ Issues, and Economic Disparities for their projects.

Johns Hopkins University has also formed a global youth advisory board (GYAB) with 1-2 youth representatives from each of the 5 recipient sites. GYAB participants are expected to give context to adolescent health matters within their respective locales as well as inform GEAS Phase 3, which will include development of a gender-transformative intervention as well as a survey instrument that will follow older adolescents into adulthood. Fittingly, an NYAB intern has been selected to represent Louisiana and the United States in this opportunity to contribute and share their perspectives in this ongoing global conversation.

To learn more about GEAS/CATAPULT, check out these blogs written by iwes staff:

 

For more information about the GEAS, email Jakevia.