News
News Briefs for the Teen Pregnancy
Prevention in Connecticut Web site was last updated
June, 2008.
Fewer and fewer states across the
nation are accepting the millions of federal abstinence education
dollars that are out there these days. According to recent
newspaper reports, almost half of all states have rejected the
opportunity to apply for these monies because the approach to teen
pregnancy prevention strongly supported by Bush Administration doesn't
appear to do much good. If states accept the monies,
instructors must teach that sexual activity outside marriage is likely
to have harmful psychological and physical effects. And more and
more states are concluding that this is unrealistic. Continue to
watch this space to learn more about what happens with this federal
program.
According to the latest
Youth Risk Behavior Survey (YRBS), about 48% of high school students in
grades 9 through 12, had ever had sexual intercourse; 35% were currently
sexually active; and more than 38% of currently sexually active
students had not used a condom during last sexual intercourse. The
Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance System (YRBSS) includes a national
school-based survey conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention and state and local school-based surveys conducted by state
and local education and health agencies. This report summarizes results
from the national survey, 39 state surveys, and 22 local surveys
conducted among students in grades 9-12 during 2007. The complete
report is available at
http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/ss5704a1.htm.
Nationwide, the teen pregnancy rate declined 5%
between 2002 and 2004 according to data from the Centers for
Disease Control and Prevention's National Center for Health
Statistics. To read the NCHS press release or to get additional
information on changing teen pregnancy rates from the National Campaign,
follow this link and please
click here.
For the first time in 14 years, the teen birth rate
in the United States has gone up, according to the National Center
for Health Statistics. Using preliminary data from 2006 the NCHS
reports that for American teenagers betweens the ages of 15 and 19, the
birth rate rose to 41.9 births per 1,000 females in 2006.
Furthermore, the birth rate for teens aged 15 to 17 rose 3 percent to 22
per 1,000 in 2006 and among 18 and 19 year olds the increase went up 4
percent to 73.0 per 1,000 for the same time period. Read the
original article or the corresponding press release by following this
link to www.teenpregnancy.org.
Emerging Answers 2007,
by researcher Douglas Kirby, Ph.D., is the newest and most comprehensive
review of evaluation research that answers the question, which
programs work to prevent teen pregnancy. Find out if
what you're doing in your community is likely to be helping to reduce
teen pregnancy by reading the report on line. Follow this
link to
www.teenpregnancy.org
The 2007 Fact
Sheet on Reproductive Health: Adolescents and Young Adults was
recently made available through the National Adolescent Health
Information Center (NAHIC). This fact sheet focuses on data describing
the reproductive health of adolescents and young adults between the ages
of 13 and 24. Topics included in the fact sheet include pregnancy rates
and birth outcomes, sexual experience, STDs, and use of condoms and
birth control pills. The fact sheet can be downloaded by following this
link to
Http://nahic.ucsf.edu/downloads/ReproHlth2007.pdf
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