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Teens are heading in wrong direction: Likely to
have sex, but not use contraception
Between 2003 and 2007, the progress made in the 1990s and early
2000s in improving teen contraceptive use and reducing teen pregnancy
and childbearing stalled, and may even have reversed among certain
groups of teens |
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| according to the study "Changing Behavior
Risk for Pregnancy Among High School Students in the United States,
1991�," by John S. Santelli, MD, MPH, professor and chair of the
Heilbrunn Department of Population and Family Health at Columbia
University Mailman School of Public Health in conjunction with
researchers at Guttmacher Institute. Between 1991 and 2003, teens'
condom use increased while their use of no contraceptive method
declined, leading to a decreased risk of pregnancy and to declines in
teen pregnancy and childbearing. The new findings, published in the July
2009 issue of the Journal of Adolescent Health, paint a very
different picture since 2003. Using data from
young women in grades 9 who participated in the Youth Risk Behavior
Survey, the authors estimated teens' risk of becoming pregnant based on
their sexual activity, the contraceptive method they used and the
effectiveness of that method in preventing pregnancy. The authors found
no change in teen sexual activity between 2003 and 2007, but did find a
small decline in contraceptive use.
"After major improvements in teen contraceptive use in
the 1990s and early 2000s, which led to significant declines in teen
pregnancy, it is disheartening to see a reversal of such a positive
trend," says Dr. Santelli. "Teens are still having sex, but it appears
many are not taking the necessary steps to protect themselves from
unwanted pregnancy or sexually transmitted infections."
Previous research by the Mailman School of Public
Health and Guttmacher Institute showed that contraceptive use was a key
factor in reducing teen pregnancy rates in the 1990s, despite little
significant change in teen sexual activity. The authors suggest that the
recent decline in teen contraceptive use since 2003 could be the result
of faltering HIV prevention efforts among youth, or of more than a
decade of abstinence-only-until-marriage sex education that does not
mention contraception unless it is to disparage its use and
effectiveness.
This reversal in contraceptive use is consistent with
increases in the teen birth rate in 2006 and 2007 as reported by the
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and may well portend
further increases in teen pregnancies and births in 2008. The authors
recommend reinvigorated efforts at both the state and national levels to
promote contraceptive use among teens through medically accurate sex
education and increased access to health services, to effectively
address the problem of teen pregnancy. The Western European experience
in reducing teen pregnancy and childbearing—with rates that are far
lower than in the United States—suggests that efforts to improve teen
contraceptive use are warranted.
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