By the Numbers (research, policy)

The National Campaign to Prevent Teen pregnancy conducts regular polls to gather information about abstinence and contraception, parent-child communication, peer involvement, religion, and sexual behavior. Their 2009 poll found that: { Read more … }

Comprehensive sexuality education is critical to young people’s ability to make healthy and informed sexual decisions. It provides accurate information about human sexuality, reproduction and sexual health; presents opportunities to explore and understand one’s own values regarding sexuality; develops skills to communicate and relate to others in healthy, satisfying, meaningful ways; and supports the ability to make sexual decisions with integrity to one’s self and respect for others. { Read more … }

A variety of survey formats have been used to collect data on the sexual practices of teens. Not only does this information help to track trends, but it also informs the interventions based on relevant risk and protective factors and the teen behaviors. For example, the 2007 Massachusetts Youth Risk Behavior Survey (YRBS), a survey administered in a random selection of high schools across the state, found that approximately 45% of high school students in Massachusetts reported having had sexual intercourse.  { Read more … }

National Rates

According to the Guttmacher Institute, the teen pregnancy rate in the United States declined between 1992 and 2002 (the most recent year for which data is available). After a rise in the late 1980s, the national rate peaked at 116.9 pregnancies per 1,000 girls aged 15–19 in 1990. A decade later, the rate decreased by 36% to 75.4 pregnancies per 1,000 women aged 15–19 in 2002. Abortion and birth rates have also declined over the past fifteen years.1

• 1. Alan Guttmacher Institute (2006). U.S.

HIV/AIDS

In the U.S., 15% of all new HIV infections in 2006 were among people ages 13-24.1 Youth of color bear a disproportionate burden of new cases; 85% of new HIV or AIDS diagnoses in 2007 among youth ages 13-19 were to Latino and African American teens, who constitute only 32% of the youth population.2

• 1. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. HIV and AIDS in the United States: a picture of today’s epidemic.
• 2. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.