For example, in New Jersey, the teen birth rate among whites (4.8) was well below the national rate for this group (18.0); whereas teen birth rates in this state among blacks (27.4) and Hispanics (31.3) were also lower than the national rates for these groups (blacks: 37.0; Hispanics: 39.8), they were approximately 6-7 fold higher than the rate for whites.
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Peer pressure. Teens are likely to do what they think their peers are doing – whether that’s having sex, practicing safe sex, or getting pregnant.
Veronica Gomez-Lobo, director of pediatric gynecology at Children’s National Medical Center, said the trend of abstinence has been mostly among younger teens rather than older teens. “Ongoing efforts to integrate social determinants of health into teen pregnancy prevention programs play a critical role in addressing racial/ethnic and geographical disparities observed in teen births in the United States”. Studies estimate that the problem costs USA taxpayers an estimated $9 billion each year. But in the new report, the CDC focused on 2006 through 2014 – the most recent phase of the decline, when the fall was steepest.
“Historically, abortion rates and birthrates have not always moved in parallel, but in recent years they have been doing so more”, Maddow-Zimet said. Researcher Isaac Maddow-Zimet said Thursday that teen pregnancies have been declining for 40 years, which by itself could explain the falling birthrates.
The agency saw declines in every state and in every racial and ethnic group. They theorized that being online could help provide teens other means of exploring relationships and find advice about effective forms of contraception in addition to researching options for terminating unwanted pregnancies.
To reach these findings, the study authors analyzed data from American teens ages 15 to 19 between 2006 and 2014. In some states, the difference is three times higher.
Any decline in teen birth rates is good news for American society, said Dr. Jennifer Wu, an obstetrician-gynecologist at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City.
Counties with higher teen birth rates clustered in the southern and southwestern states, but even states with low overall birth rates had pockets of high birth rates in some counties, the CDC reported.
“The United States has made remarkable progress in reducing both teen pregnancy and racial and ethnic differences, but the reality is, too many American teens are still having babies”, CDC Director Tom Frieden said in a statement.
Factors such as high unemployment, less education and lower family income appeared to be associated with higher teen birth rates in those counties, the report found.
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The teenage birth rate was at a critical level in the early 1990s, but it has now fallen to its lowest level in history.
