Teen Pregnancy
For more than 25 years, teenage pregnancy has been one of the nation’s major social problems. And for 14 years — from 1991 until 2005 — the country made sound progress in reducing teen pregnancy rates. In fact, teen pregnancy rates fell to their lowest levels in 30 years during that period. Teenage sexual activity also declined.
But in 2005, rates reached a plateau. Since then they’ve crept up several percentage points a year. And teen pregnancy and childbearing remain very serious problems in South Carolina.
Some experts speculate that over the past few years, media attention to celebrity teen moms have glamorized teen pregnancy. Others say funding cuts to teen programs are part of the problem.
Whatever the cause, many teen pregnancy experts say that honest and caring conversations between parents and teens; better quality sex and relationship education; and seeing the consequences of teen pregnancy realistically portrayed in the media would help young people avoid teen pregnancy.
Research shows that about 75 percent of the decrease in teen pregnancies over the last two decades occurred as a result of increased contraceptive use. The remaining 25 percent has been attributed to more young people choosing to remain abstinent.
Many researchers and providers also acknowledge the synergistic effect of a number of factors, such as: emphasis on abstinence; the increasing popularity, availability and use of the newer, long-lasting methods of contraception, such as Depo Provera and the contraceptive patch; and awareness of the risk of sexually transmitted diseases, especially AIDS (which may be the result of AIDS education programs).
Programs to reduce teen pregnancy have made a real difference in encouraging teens to remain abstinent or use contraception when they have sex. We continue to encourage communities to follow certain strategies to increase the chances that program they select or design on their own will actually reduce sexual risk taking or pregnancy.
Those strategies are: 1) Incorporate or draw on fidelity and other programs demonstrated to be effective with similar populations. 2) Use logic models to select or design new programs.
At the same time, reasonable, informed and concerned individuals in each community must collaborate to promote important messages and actions to teens.
“It is important to continue to send teens, especially young teens, the message that they don’t have to have sex, that it’s OK to delay;” says Sarah Brown, executive director of the National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy. “We must continue to work hard to make sexually active kids understand that if they are not abstinent, [they must use] contraception exquisitely carefully.”
In addressing teenage pregnancy, DHEC will continue to work with community partners to develop appropriate evaluation measures for the interventions that are being undertaken. We will continue to:
- Provide voluntary, confidential family planning services that provide education, counseling and a broad range of acceptable and effective family planning methods to teenagers;
- Develop data-driven strategies that target high-risk populations;
- Work in collaboration with other public and private agencies or organizations and community groups to reach teenagers with effective interventions before a first or subsequent pregnancy.
Also see http:/www.TheNationalCampaign.org.