Tammy Chang, M.D., M.P.H., M.S., assistant professor, her national adolescent polling platform MyVoice were commissioned by a committee of experts at the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (the National Academies) to develop a new national report on adolescent development.
The National Academies report is titled The Promise of Adolescence: Realizing Opportunity for All Youth. The report combines multidisciplinary research–including original MyVoice youth testimonies, qualitative findings, and analysis–to provide an updated understanding of the neurobiological and socio-behavioral science of adolescent development.
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The report identifies actionable policy and practice recommendations–in social and environmental areas like education, health care, child welfare, and the juvenile justice system–with the goal of ensuring that all people have equitable opportunity to “flourish and thrive” during the critical period of adolescent development.
MyVoice was commissioned to provide real-time youth voices and youth-centered qualitative analysis to the National Academies committee report. The NAM x MyVoice collaboration represents a new approach to generating scientific-based national policy recommendations.
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Chang, a 2017 National Academy of Medicine Fellow, had been preparing for this kind of opportunity.
“The fact that we can use MyVoice to bring in youth voice – not just experts–in national scientific and policy dialogue is so exciting! It’s an opportunity for youth to say, ‘Hey this is what is really happening. This is what I’m experiencing right now.'”
Data and analysis from the MyVoice team was leveraged to validate and ground the report’s multidisciplinary scientific review in real life, narrative experience. It is one of many efforts to activate MyVoice on a national scale, through partnerships with experts in adolescent policy and well-being.
Read the final NAM report here.
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The study — undertaken by the Committee on the Neurobiological and Socio-behavioral Science of Adolescent Development and Its Applications — was sponsored by the Funders for Adolescent Science Translation, including the Annie E. Casey Foundation, Bezos Family Foundation, Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, Ford Foundation, Hilton Foundation, National Public Education Support Fund, Raikes Foundation, and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.
The National Academy of Medicine (NAM) is one of three academies that make up the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (the National Academies) in the United States. Operating under the 1863 Congressional charter of the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academies are private, nonprofit institutions that work outside of government to provide objective advice on matters of science, technology, and health.
