Apr 30, 2016

Saturday Data: An Astounding Drop in Teen Pregnancies


    The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is out with a study that finds teen pregnancy down across the country in all populations and ethnic groups.....for example:


 "Nationally, from 2006 to 2014, the teen birth rate declined 41% overall (from 41.1 per 1,000 to 24.2 per 1,000). The largest decline occurred among Hispanics (51%, from 77.4 to 38.0), followed by blacks (44%, from 61.9 to 34.9), and then whites (35%, from 26.7 to 17.3) (Figure 1). Correspondingly, the birth rate ratio for Hispanic teens and black teens compared with white teens declined from 2.9 to 2.2 and from 2.3 to 2.0, respectively."

    The Washington Post is one of the papers with the story. that includes speculation about the reason:

".....most experts agree on the two major causes. The first is the most important and may be obvious: Today’s teens enjoy better access to contraception and more convenient contraception than their predecessors, and more of them are taking advantage of innovations — such as long-acting injectable and implantable methods that can last years — over a daily birth control pill. But the second cause is something that goes against the conventional wisdom. It’s that teens — despite their portrayal in popular TV and movies as uninhibited and acting only on hormones — are having less sex."

     There are differences in the rate of decline by region. You can see a chart with the state figures toward the bottom of THIS page on the CDC site. For example, the Alabama rate among white teens dropped 27.9% and the rate for black teens dropped  40.1%,



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