Innovation in Action Team Feature: Reproactive

ReproActive is focused on solving communication and education issues related to sexual and reproductive health for adolescents and young adults. Knowing this a highly stigmatized topic, ReproActive aims to deliver unique tools to relevant stakeholders, adolescents, young adults, healthcare providers, and parents.

The team formed using the Innovation in Action Google Group, which allows students to quickly share ideas and connect with others who are passionate about the same topic areas. After connecting on the Google Group, the team met at a coffee shop and bonded over a shared interest in reproductive health. According to ReproActive team member Viggy Hampton, “One of our team members, Shelbi Lisecki, suggested the topic of reproductive health with a focus on parent-child conversations. We all felt that this was an under-researched and under-appreciated challenge, and decided that this would be the best topic for our group to focus on during IiA.”

In addition to finding a shared topic to take on, ReproActive discovered they have the pieces to make a great interdisciplinary student team. “[W]e found that we all had complementary skill sets in addition to our shared interest; on our team, we have two epidemiologists, a UX specialist, a design expert, a computer engineer, an MBA candidate, and a health care strategist—and that’s just among the four of us,” said Hampton.

The ReproActive team believes their work is important to ultimately reduce inequalities in access to sexual and reproductive health information. They want adolescents to be able to access that information in a healthy, understandable, and easy to process manner. They want parents to be able to deliver this information at the right place and right time for their kids. When asked why their team’s topic is important, Hampton said, “We think it is extremely important that parents are able to have actionable, evidence-backed, age-appropriate conversations about reproductive health with their children so that they can stay safe and healthy.”

C-SED is excited to see what the ReproActive team and many other teams come up with this year in Innovation in Action!