The Policy Environment Score: Measuring the Degree to Which the Policy Environment in Jamaica Supports Effective Policies and Programs for Adolescent Reproductive Health: 2002 Round Newton Wynter, Karen Hardee and Pauline Russell-Brown (September 2003)  Full Document (English)      Order for free      email to me  Prior to 2002, two rounds of the PES had been fielded in Jamaica, the first in 1999 and the second in 2000. These rounds were conducted by the POLICY Project on behalf of USAID/Kingston (McClure et al., 2000; Strachan et al., 2001). Those rounds of the PES included four components of reproductive health, namely family planning, safe pregnancy, STDs/AIDS, and adolescents. This 2002 round of the PES, conducted jointly by Youth.now and the POLICY Project, focuses exclusively on adolescents. Called the Expanded ARH PES, the 2002 round included the same questions regarding adolescent reproductive health (ARH) that were used in 2000 and 1999 (hereafter referred to as the “original” ARH PES) and also included a number of additional questions to more accurately reflect the policy environment for ARH in Jamaica in 2002, given policy and program activities undertaken over the past few years (hereafter referred to as the “expanded” ARH PES). The 2002 Expanded ARH PES included the seven components of political support, policy formulation, organizational structure, legal and regulatory, program resources, program components, and evaluation and research. To measure change in the policy environment, respondents were asked to rate each item twice—once to reflect the current status in 2002, as well as once to indicate the status one year earlier in 2001.